The Soulmate Agency

by Ivan B

  “Sure, never better and never happier.”

  As they ate the main course Treasa became sure that George felt he was making a mistake. He didn’t join in with the conversation and was beginning to look even more uncomfortable than before. It was as if he wanted to escape, to run out of the door and never come back. Eventually, just as Roberta, the slowest eater, put her knife and fork down he stood up and excused himself. After ten minutes he hadn’t reappeared and Treasa feared the worst, he’d done a runner. She excused herself and made her way down the corridor to the nearest loo, the door was unlocked, so her bird had flown. Gloom and dejection began to overwhelm her and she retreated down the corridor into her own bedroom suite. George was sitting in her suite’s sitting room with his head in his hands, he looked up as she entered. “Sorry,” he muttered, “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  She said softly, “I understand if you want to go, perhaps it was a bad idea coming to the dinner.”

  His voice took on a sort of strangled anguish quality. “I don’t want to go, I want to be with you, but I’m not coping.”

  “Not coping?”

  He shrugged, “I’m just a humble traffic cop. I don’t normally mix with the likes of company directors and theatre critics and BBC announcers and the aristocracy. I just don’t know what to say and I know I’m becoming an embarrassment to you. If I can’t cope here how am I going to cope with your show-business friends? I’m just letting you down.”

  She sat on the footstool, “Actually George I don’t have any show-business friends. Lots of friends from the charity I’m involved in, and they come from all walks of life, even the police, but no show-business friends. I sort of work in isolation and children’s TV presenters actually aren’t far up the evolutionary scale as far as a lot of actors and actresses are concerned.

  He wrung his hands, “And all they’re talking about is marriage, don’t they realise that they’re being very rude to you.”

  “They’re just happy George, happy for themselves and each other.”

  “Well I want you to be happy and I think they’re being unfair.”

  He reminded her of a small child wanting to throw a tantrum, but too tired to do so. She almost whispered, “I was beginning to wonder if it was me you were having second thoughts about.”

  “Never,” he replied instantly. “I meant what I said earlier.”

  “Does all this talk of marriage frighten you? The thought of one woman for life?”

  He shrugged, “Not if it was you, but that’s…”

  He mumbled something to finish the sentence. “That’s what?” She asked gently.

  “That’s probably out of my reach, I know that now.”

  She was staggered at his defeatism. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s obvious, Once you go back to work and into the cold light of day you’re realise that I just won’t fit in to your lifestyle.”

  He turned his eyes to look into hers, “It’s not that I wouldn’t want you as a wife, I’d just be a millstone as a husband and that would cause you hurt. And I don’t want to cause you hurt.”

  This was unexpected, he was getting the collywobbles, not over her lack of height of child-like features, but due to a feeling of inferiority. If he was like this now, she wondered, whatever would he be like once he did start to meet her few friends or go with her to a charity function, or worse still find out that Treasa’s TV producer wanted a ‘Molly Mint gets married’ programme? She sat still, was he the man she still wanted, and if so how could she retrieve the situation? She leapt to her feet and flopped onto his lap. “Let’s make it a triple wedding tomorrow.”

  “What!” he exclaimed.

  “I’m sure I’ve met Mr Right and I think you are sure you’ve met Mrs Right. You’re the first man to treat me like a woman. You are the first man to set what hormones I’ve got racing. I don’t intend to let you run away at the first hurdle. You said about the size thing that we could work it out together, well the same applies here. Marry me tomorrow and then you will know that I am always yours.”

  He sat as if pole-axed and she waited for an answer. This was casting all her eggs into one basket, all her hopes into one action, all she needed now was a positive reply.

  Back in the dining room conversation flowed away from marriage and towards the speaker whom they had all refused to hear, from there it went to the sanctity of marriage, the perils of cohabitation and the selfishness of some people in sacrificing their marriages for their careers. Derek paused from his last spoonful of some delicious toffee-ice-cream. “I suppose that’s me,” he remarked, “In a way I’ve sacrificed marriage for a career in that I’ve never even thought about getting married,” he grinned, “until now.”

  “Doesn’t count,” said Riona smacking her lips after eating a bowlful of toffee yoghurt. “That’s just not getting round to it. My father sacrificed his widowhood for the chance to have a son and heir. Then he sacrificed any chance of a relationship with me for maintaining a relationship with his new wife. Finally he sacrificed his relationship with her on the grounds of keeping all his money within what he regarded as his family and using some iniquitous laws regarding peerages and titles to his own ends.”

  “So you’d rather marriage didn’t involve sacrifice?” Asked Henry.

  She licked her gold teeth, “Of course it involves sacrifice, but it should be a willing sacrifice. We both give up our independence to be a married couple. We both we have to exercise give and take to make the marriage work.”

  Ben nodded, “Different aim. The aim of your sacrifices are to make the marriage work, the aim of your father’s sacrifices seems to have been furthering his own ends.”

  Gwen said something in reply, but Riona wasn’t listening. It had suddenly occurred to her that she was asking Cameron to make all the sacrifices. He’d married her so she could inherit. He’d told her he’d stand by her if she wanted to live in on her estate, so what of his career? Where was her part of the marriage sacrifice? She’d told her servants that Cameron and her hadn’t decided about living at Hardcastle Mansion, but she’d really meant she hadn’t decided. She glanced over at Cameron, who was listening intently to Willow as she described the early symptoms of her first failed marriage. She caught the words ‘wanted his own way’ and ‘dominated joint agendas,’ and she mentally shuddered. Today had been all about her agenda, she’d not once thought about visiting his family or what he might want. He looked back at her and she smiled, things would have to change; she would have to change.

  Chapter 33

  The Last Night

  Coffee was taken in the lounge, Riona was just examining the coffee-pot to see how strong the substance was when Treasa burst in with George in tow. She hopped up and down like a small child, “One more marriage for tomorrow, George and I are going to get hitched.”

  She bowed to Ben, “And have a wedding blessing at my family’s Methodist Chapel, but only after I’ve told my father that I’m marrying a policeman.”

  George gave a sort of sheepish smile, the speed of events were overwhelming him. He felt like he was a boulder fast gathering speed down a steep hillside, he only hoped that he wouldn’t come to a sticky end. Riona was the first to react, “Oh right on,” she said.

  Henry was rather more formal and shook George’s hand. Within minutes everybody was talking and Gwen found herself standing next to Treasa and looking down at her, a somewhat new experience. “How did he pop the question? I rather suspected he was the slow and steady type, not that there’s anything wrong in that.”

  Treasa grinned, “I popped the question. We need to take uncertainty out of the equation and get on with living together.”

  Gwen looked across the room at Derek, “Monday morning I would have said you were mad. Now I know Derek is the man for me, I guess if you’re sure, you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure,” replied Treasa. I’ve spent thirty odd years looking and met a good few toads on the way, I’m sure.”

  Ben sidle
d up to George and patted him on the back. George still looked rather bewildered, Ben misread his expression. “Rather like that isn’t it? They just sweep you off of your feet.”

  “You could say that,” he muttered, “you could say that.”

  As soon as the coffee had been drunk everybody suddenly seemed to have other agendas to follow; within a few minutes only Henry and Willow were left alone. She put her cup down and gave an amorous grin, “Ready for bed?”

  Henry almost heard the bells of doom tolling in his head, the time had come. “Not yet.”

  He patted the settee seat next to him. “Can we talk for a minute or two?”

  Apprehensive curiosity flicked across her face. Why did he want to talk? And why now when the bedroom beckoned? Henry put his head in his hands and Willow feared the worst. Once again she was expecting an ‘I think this is not going to work,’ when she got a muffled, “I’ve got a confession to make.”

  He sat upright and held her hand. “I should have told you earlier, but you rather swept me off my feet and I never felt the time was right to…”

  She felt the tension in his hand. She managed a strangled, “Go on,” fearing what he might say and remembering when her second husband had attempted jocularity when he’d told her that there was a slight problem with the legality of their marriage.

  He closed his eyes, “I left a bit out of my life story on Monday . After Sally died I rather went off the rails. Psychiatrist said I was living out the adolescence I never had. Whatever, I drank a lot, drove cars like a stupid idiot and generally ran riot. I suppose I became everybody’s nightmare neighbour. Loud parties, drunken brawls, loud music. And then I killed a young girl named Jocelyn.”

  He took a sharp intake of breath and gave a little sob. “I suppose I was over the limit, to be honest I’m not sure, which probably means I was. We’d been to a country pub and I was driving home alone, too fast at night on a windy country lane in a friend’s MG. I remember cutting a blind corner on the wrong side of the road before the windscreen shattered and became covered in blood.”

  He swallowed at if he found it difficult to talk. “I got out off the car and walked back.” Tears started to stream down his cheeks, “She was lying in the middle of the road, covered in blood and obviously …”

  He sobbed again. Willow, in total dread of the reply, asked, “What did you do?”

  “I panicked. I didn’t check her or examine her, my only thought was to get away.”

  He sobbed again, “I left her lying there and ran down the country lane in the pitch black, missed a turn where there was a humped-back railway bridge and fell down the embankment; a track-gang found me three hours later, semi-unconscious, and with a dislocated kneecap.”

  He turned his tear-stained red eyes onto Willow. “Thing was I hadn’t killed her, I could have, but I didn’t. She was already dead when I hit her. Some bastard in a Land-Rover had already mown her down and left her for dead. Thing is the police thought that I’d been running to telephone for an ambulance, there was no mobile signal, and I never told them any different.” The last five words were spoken in utter anguish.

  He sobbed again. “I got off scot-free, I’d been over the limit, driving like a lunatic and ran over a young girl and I got off scot-free.”

  Willow put her arm around him and held him close, it was blatantly obvious to her that he hadn’t got off scot-free, the emotional scars were still showing as raw as ever. After a minute or two he half pulled himself together. “It was my wake-up call. Until then I’d let my life run downhill and I was steadily frittering away Sally’s compensation. After that I decided to do something with my life.”

  “So you started the juice company?”

  “Yes, but I went back to church first and told my story to the local priest. I hadn’t been to confession for years.” He took another lung racking breath, “He told me that God looked more favourably on those who give more than those who take, so I should aim to give something worthwhile to the world. Then I started the company. Juice manufacture is not difficult once you’ve got the right ingredients and the right chemical mix.”

  He turned his eyes on her, “And it’s no good having the best tasting juices in the world if they go off in the bottle after three days.”

  He blew his nose on his lily white handkerchief and left an off-white stain. “I told Jakob and Sarah when we started that I wanted to employ people that others wouldn’t employ and give away 10% of our production. Jakob told me I was mad, but as I was English and paying the bills he’d stay and Sarah told me that what I was doing was fine and noble, but crazy.”

  Something Jakob had said popped into her brain, “Jakob said you employ a large number of cleaners.”

  He nodded, “They can study one day in five if they want to and the Union run English courses for them, they’re nearly all asylum seekers or kids leaving school with nothing.”

  “You have a Union?” There was surprise in her voice.

  He sniffed, “Of course, with that much young and foreign labour I don’t want to be accused of exploitation. Jakob used to be shop-steward, now it’s a woman called Rachel.”

  Willow watched him closely, “And you still give away 10%?”

  “Not in kind, some is now sponsorship.”

  He wrung his handkerchief between his hands. “Funny thing is the more I give away the more money I seem to make.”

  He swallowed as if biting back on bile. “So you see who you’re planning to marry tomorrow. The kind of chap who runs over a young girl and leaves her in the road and runs away and doesn’t tell the police the truth.”

  “But she was already dead.”

  He looked at her with haunted eyes and replied hoarsely, “But she might not have been. Just suppose the Land-Rover hadn’t hit her twenty minutes before, would I have hit her and killed her?”

  She pulled him to her, “Seems to me this was all a long time ago and far away.”

  She felt him shake his head, “Not to me, it could have been yesterday to me.”

  She stroked his hair, “Well I think your wonderful, and if all this is supposed to put me off your wrong. I’ll still be proud to marry you tomorrow.”

  His head fell on her chest and she heard him say, “Why should life be so good to me?” Before he started sobbing with relief and she realised that this relationship was different from all the others she had had. They had all started with sex or lust, this one was starting with honesty, a much better place to start.

  Roberta led Ben to her suite sensing that Ben was fast becoming tongue tied and reticent. Once in her suite he held her hands and looked in her eyes. “I’m sorry.” He said softly.

  Her heart missed a beat. “Sorry for what?”

  “Sorry that I couldn’t give you a ring like Gwen’s or be romantic enough to propose in public and let you suffer the indignity of that cold marriage. I should have done better, much better.”

  She gently kissed him on the forehead, “You’ve done fine by me. I don’t want any other ring, I’m proud of this one and your proposal was wonderful. I’ll cherish the ring and the memory of the look on your face last night as you proposed.”

  She let go of him, “I’m going to change in the bathroom, I won’t be long.”

  Ben changed in the bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed and wondering what to do next. He was now completely out of his depth. He was married to a woman whom he ‘d only met three days ago and was obviously now expected to consummate the marriage. In reality he didn’t even know where to start. It usually took him at least three dates to even think about kissing a woman, let alone… Questions flooded into his mind; should he wait till they were in bed? Should he kiss her first? Should he…? His anxious thoughts were interrupted by her arrival from out of the toilet. She took one look at his face and sat down beside him and held his hand. “You’ve never done this before?”

  He looked away and shook his head, he’d never felt so inadequate in his life. She got up, pulled back the duvet and sat do
wn beside him again. “Well I,” she proudly announced as she turned off the bedside light, “have been to finishing school.”

  Cameron and Riona made their way to their suite and Riona led Cameron towards the settee as soon as they entered. She sat him down and then moved to sit in the armchair opposite so she could face him. She pulled it closer until their knees were almost touching. “Coping,” She asked.

  He reached out and fingered her string of pearls. “Tell me I’m, not dreaming. I am actually married to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “It seems surreal and wonderful at the same time.”

  “It’s wonderful for me as well.”

  He traced the shape of the necklace with his index finger. “And you live in a big house with lots of servants?”

  “A reasonably big house with a few servants, yes.”

  “And you own a huge chocolate company?”

  “I control 51% of a huge chocolate company, that’s not quite the same.”

  “And you ride horses and have a swimming pool and your own personal solicitor.”

  “They are available to me, yes.”

  He gazed into her eyes, “Then I’m still dreaming.”

  “About what?”

  His fingers moved to gently rubbing her lower neck, “You.”

  His fingers stopped and rested just above her cleavage. “Don’t get me wrong all the other stuff is nice, but you are wonderful. I meant what I said, I’m not interested in the money and all the trappings, it’s been enough just to marry you and be with you.”

  She knew he meant it. She licked her teeth, “There’s a thing called The Stately Homes, Royalty and Hereditary Peerages act of 2003, it’s what father used to disinherit Lady Hardcastle. My solicitor’s given me a copy and has told me that even though I’m not a Lord, I can use the act to ring-fence my money from yours.”

  “I’ll sign whatever you want,” He said.

  Riona knew all about The Stately Homes, Royalty and Hereditary Peerages act of 2003 as she had, albeit at a distance, seen the effect of the use of this act on her father’s marriage. Lady Hardcastle had always had a mercenary streak, but when her father had registered his intentions under the act it had instantly killed off any vestiges of love and respect between them. Fluffy had urged her to register under the act now, if she was intending to, as Cameron would probably just accept it as part of the process whereas in a few years time he may not be so inclined. She decisively thwacked her sandals together. “I’ve made my vows before God and I seem to remember that part of the deal was the promise that ‘all that I have I share with you.’ I don’t intend to renege on that. If you don’t mind I’ll use The Stately Homes, Royalty and Hereditary Peerages Act to reduce future death duties if I can, but I want my you to have a joint share of everything and I’ll also tell Fluffy to draw up a will that says just that in case I die before we can get everything completed you get it all.”