by Haley Hill
Once I had finished, I hosed down the patio and brushed away the remaining mud and dust with the broom. Then I sat on the back step. I had two throbbing blisters on my hands but as I looked around at the courtyard with its high walls and creeping ivy—a pocket of tranquility in the busy streets of London—I couldn’t help but let out a contented sigh. As I did, Rupert jumped into my lap and closed his eyes. My eyelids felt heavy and I was tempted to close mine too, but it was nearly one o’clock and, given the bizarre mood Matthew had been in of late, I knew it would be unwise to leave him unsupervised in a licensed premises for even the briefest amount of time.
After I’d quickly changed my clothes, I looked down at the loose knit jumper and White Company trousers I’d selected, and wondered why I was dressing for the life I wanted rather than the one I had. I briefly considered digging out my old skinny jeans and Topshop T-shirts that I’d packed away in our spare wardrobe, but there was no time. I slathered on some lip gloss, tucked Rupert into his carry case, and set off to meet Matthew.
Just as I walked out of the house, my phone rang. I glanced at the screen, half expecting it to be Victoria complaining that a stray leaf had blown into her espaliered apple trees or else Matthew telling me to meet him at the nail bar instead.
As it turned out, it was an ex-client of mine, Harriet. She and Jeremy were the first couple I matched. But if I’d known seven years ago in the grounds of an eighteenth-century chateau in Versailles that I was committing to their relationship for a lifetime too, I might have reconsidered. Or at least insisted on some kind of matchmaker prenup.
Harriet was sobbing when I picked up. ‘He’s done it again, Ellie.’
I sighed. ‘Oh dear.’
‘I’ve just been through his receipts.’
‘Are you OK?’
She sniffed. ‘No.’
‘So what is it this time?’
‘Three grand.’
I’m not sure what was more disheartening. The fact that her husband Jeremy had spent three thousand pounds on strippers in one night. Or that Harriet, bred of Cheltenham Ladies’ College, had begun using the term ‘grand’ like a character from a Martina Cole novel.
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘The Windmill Club.’
I tutted.
‘Can I see you, Ellie? I really need to talk this through.’
I glanced down at Rupert. He wagged his tail. ‘Sure,’ I said, trying to sound as upbeat as I could.
‘I’ve got an hour or so before I have to pick the kids up. Where are you?’ she asked.
‘I’ll be at Barnes Bistro in ten,’ I said. ‘I’ll have a friend with me though if you don’t mind him chipping in? He’s a little eccentric but can be quite insightful sometimes.’
She took a moment to reply. ‘That’s fine. See you there. Thank you, Ellie.’
Matthew was seated at a table and talking to a waiter when I arrived.
‘I want the biggest Brie and Parma ham baguette you have,’ Matthew explained.
‘I’m afraid we only have one size of baguette, sir.’
Matthew rolled his eyes. ‘Well, how big is it?’
The waiter measured out a sizeable-looking baguette length with his hands. Matthew scrunched up his nose. ‘I’ll have two,’ he said, ‘and some fries. And a bottle of rosé.’
I held my hands up. ‘I’m not drinking today.’
Matthew grinned. ‘I wasn’t ordering for you, sweet-cheeks.’
I ordered a mineral water and a seafood salad, then told Matthew that Harriet would be joining us.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘My first attempt at “me time” is being sabotaged by a whiney housewife.’
I sat back in my chair and stared at him, trying to fathom what was going on under that bouffant quiff of his.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
He looked up to the sky as if to ask why he had been saddled with such an unintuitive friend.
I glared at him. ‘Of course I know you’re not OK. I’m just trying to decipher if you’re having a bit of a wobble, or if you’re about to totally go off the rails.’
He laughed. ‘Don’t stress. It’s all manageable.’ His grin widened. ‘At least with a bottle of rosé.’ Then he snatched the bottle from the waiter and began pouring himself a glass.
Once he’d finished his first baguette and most of the rosé, his mood seemed to settle. He even made a few jokes that weren’t entirely at my or the waiter’s expense. I speared the final prawn off my plate and looked around us. For once I hadn’t even noticed the small children and babies dotted around me. I hadn’t engaged a new mother in conversation, hoping her fertility might somehow rub off on me. I hadn’t even remarked about how cute the kids’ menu sounded. I glanced down at Rupert’s carry case and smiled. His eyebrows twitched and he let out a tiny yelp. He was in a deep sleep. I imagined him dreaming about chasing leaves and bounding around the courtyard. What a sweet little world he lived in, full of exciting things to discover and adventures to be had.
My thoughts were interrupted by Matthew coughing violently, seemingly choking on some Brie. I jumped up and patted him on the back, slightly concerned I might be expected to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre.
He grabbed some more rosé and took a gulp, the colour quickly returning to his cheeks. When I realised he was no longer in danger of death, I gestured to his plate and sniggered.
‘Want me to cut that up for you?’ I said.
He rolled his eyes and wiped his mouth with a napkin, then pointed. ‘It was that woman. Did you see her?’
I turned round to see Harriet walking towards us. Despite her husband’s recent antics, it appeared she still had the oesophagus-blocking power of a Milanese runway model.
I removed the second baguette from Matthew’s hand as she approached. Just in case.
‘Harriet, hi,’ I said, standing up to greet her.
She flung her arms around me. ‘It’s so good to see you, Ellie,’ she said.
I hugged her in return but her ribcage felt so frail I was reluctant to squeeze too hard.
When we were all sitting down, I introduced her to Matthew, who had been silent since the choking incident.
She smiled at him. ‘Nice to meet you, Matthew,’ she said, sweeping her caramel-coloured hair from her face. He looked mesmerised, as though Woody Allen had met his latest muse. I kicked him under the table.
She turned to me. ‘I’m so sorry, Ellie, I didn’t mean to gatecrash your lunch.’
‘It’s fine, Harriet, honestly. Are you OK?’
The waiter brought another wine glass and Harriet quickly poured herself some rosé. Straight away Matthew ordered another bottle.
By the third bottle, Matthew had found his voice and Harriet seemed to be receptive to his advice.
‘Dump him,’ Mathew slurred. ‘You shouldn’t stand for that.’
Harriet nodded.
‘Hang on,’ I interrupted. ‘She’s married to him and they have two children.’
Matthew shrugged his shoulders.
‘And she loves him,’ I added.
Matthew poured himself and Harriet another glass. ‘But does he love her? That’s the question.’
‘Of course he does,’ I answered.
Matthew raised both eyebrows. ‘If he loves her, why is he paying naked women thousands of pounds?’
I kicked Matthew under the table again then glanced over at Harriet.
She took a long gulp of wine. ‘Precisely my point,’ she said, then frowned. ‘Although I don’t think they’re naked when he pays them.’
‘Yes.’ Matthew nodded. ‘Excellent point.’ He raised a finger in the air. ‘There’d be no point paying them if they were already naked, would there?’
I tutted, feeling tempted to pour myself a glass of rosé too, but I resisted. ‘And you, Matthew? Should Lucy leave you?’
He frowned. ‘What for?’
I sat back in my chair. ‘Well, restricting my point to the topic at hand. Weren’t you the recip
ient of a lap dance the other day?’
He exhaled a laugh. ‘It was unsolicited,’ he said. ‘I didn’t pay. And it was a man, so it doesn’t count.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘What about the boobs and bottoms you were groping?’
He smiled. ‘I was in character.’
‘What character? Pervy married guy?’
Matthew shot me a glare. ‘No, long-suffering friend who was forced to adopt mock gay caricature in order to survive the wrath of dildo-wielding divorcees.’
Harriet laughed.
Matthew joined in.
I rolled my eyes, realising that the chance of any sensible conversation had been thwarted by their efforts to reach the combined blood alcohol level to floor a woolly mammoth.
Matthew sloshed some more wine into his glass. ‘You should leave Jenemy—sorry, Jeremy—and marry me.’ Then he jumped up from his seat and kneeled before her.
Harriet giggled as Matthew attempted to mould a ring out of Brie.
I sighed and checked my watch. ‘Harriet,’ I said, just as Matthew lurched forwards to kiss his bride, ‘didn’t you say you had to collect the kids from school?’
She pushed Matthew away, and stood up. Then she stopped, looked around her and sat back down.
‘Fuck it,’ she said, reaching for her phone. ‘Jeremy can collect them for once.’ She typed a text, then poured herself another glass. Straight away, her phone buzzed in reply. She glanced at the screen. ‘He says it’s fine,’ she said, then tossed the phone into her bag. ‘Wanker.’
I shook my head and poured some water into Rupert’s travel dish. ‘I’m sure Jeremy feels terrible, Harriet.’
‘So he should,’ Matthew chipped in. ‘He sounds like a total twat.’
Harriet turned to me, her face scrunched up. ‘Why aren’t you on my side, Ellie?’
‘You’re a couple,’ I said. ‘I want you both to be happy.’
Matthew jumped up from his seat, waving a baguette around like a sword.
‘Eleanor Rigby, warrior princess,’ he said in his movie-trailer voice. ‘fighting heartbreak wherever she goes.’ He swiped the air with his baguette. ‘She’s on love’s side.’ He swished it from side to side as though slaying an invisible enemy. ‘She may have lost the battle but she hasn’t lost the war.’
Harriet laughed loudly and Matthew placed his baguette sword back into its imaginary holster and sat back down.
I looked at them both. ‘Will you two just grow up?’
Matthew pulled his chin to his chest and made a silly ‘ooooh,’ noise. Harriet giggled.
‘Right,’ I said, picking up Rupert’s carry case and glaring at them both. ‘Clearly I care more about your relationships than you do.’
Then I stormed off, accidentally knocking over Rupert’s water.
Matthew swished his baguette-sword again and shouted after me.
‘Go forth, carry-cased crusader, and canine companion. Go forth and save us all!’
Back at home, I let Rupert scurry around the back garden while I made myself a cup of tea and leafed through the latest copy of Grazia. Since becoming a matchmaker, it seemed every waking hour had been dedicated to the needs of others. I’d been unable to detach myself from their loneliness, heartbreak or even their happiness. No matter what the time of day, there was always something I could have been doing to help them find, or more importantly, sustain love. However, since Dominic had ordered me to leave my post unmanned and embark on an elaborate jaunt around the globe, I realised that my clients and the agency would have to learn to survive without me. I laughed to myself. Given the result of today’s intervention, though, they might be better off.
I flipped the page and began to read an article about a woman whose husband had spent the deposit they’d saved for a house on a blackjack table in Vegas. I read on. It appeared he was an undiagnosed manic-depressive. I glanced up from the magazine and stared out the window at the row of rooftops. If we were all forced to undertake a rigorous psychological assessment prior to marriage, I wondered how many of us would actually pass. I imagined even fewer would pass after.
Just as I read the part about how she’d filed for divorce the day he was sectioned, my phone began to vibrate on the kitchen counter. It was Jeremy.
‘She’s left me,’ he said.
I pressed my ear closer to the phone, to check I’d heard right. ‘What?’
‘Harriet. She’s abandoned the kids and left me.’
‘Jeremy, slow down. What happened?’
Ten minutes later, after I, along with the guidance of a nurse from NHS Direct, coached Jeremy via the phone how to breathe into a paper bag to prevent further hyperventilation, he explained what had happened.
‘She sent me a text,’ he said, ‘telling me to collect the kids from the pool. Which I thought was a bit weird, because they were supposed to be at school.’
‘That might have been a typo?’ I suggested.
He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, after an hour at the leisure centre, followed by two hours filling out forms at the police station, it transpires that’s precisely what it was.’
‘Are the kids OK?’
‘They’re fine.’
‘And Harriet?’
‘She’s left me, I told you.’
‘No, she hasn’t.’
He let out a deep sigh. ‘Yes, she has. She texted me a picture of her and her new man. He was waving a baguette in the photo.’
‘What?’
‘The text said she never wanted to see me again, that she’d had enough and she deserved to be with someone who understood what commitment meant.’
I frowned. ‘Someone like Matthew?’
‘Who?’
‘The man in the photo.’
‘I suppose so.’
For a man who’d made tens of millions from scratch and then lost it all, who’d witnessed his childhood pet dog shot dead by his father, who’d lost the love of his life several times over, then finally found her again, this time Jeremy sounded as though he was ready to give up. I’d never heard defeat in his voice before.
‘You can’t blame her for being upset,’ I said.
‘Yeah, big deal. I stayed out a bit late the other night. Our clients were over from Singapore and they needed entertaining.’
My thoughts formed quickly. ‘Where did you go?’
‘The Windmill. I can’t stand the place, but that’s where they wanted to go. I sat upstairs all night at the bar, playing Angry Birds on my phone, while they racked up over three thousand on our expense account. Dodgy lot.’
‘So you didn’t even go downstairs?’
‘No, not after last time on Mike’s stag do when I ended up paying for a ton of dances I didn’t have.’
‘Why would you pay for dances you didn’t have?’
‘I didn’t want to offend the girls.’
‘What?’
‘Most of them were studying, you know, trying to better their lives. It felt rude to turn them away without at least offering them something.’
I sighed. ‘So you’d jeopardise your marriage to preserve the feelings of a stripper?’
‘They’re people too, you know. Anyway, I’ve done nothing wrong. Harriet’s the one cavorting all over town with the bread guy.’ He paused to sniff. ‘If you speak to her, please tell her to come home.’
I tried to call Harriet and Matthew several times throughout the evening but it seemed Harriet’s battery had run low or she’d switched off her phone. However, from Matthew’s frequent tweets and Facebook updates, it appeared his phone was working fine; he was just ignoring my calls. Every half an hour or so, I and the rest of his social media network were treated to a selection of selfies and a location update.
18.07: with the driver on the 37 bus to Clapham High Street.
20.13: Matthew ‘knighting’ a pedestrian with his baguette.
23.03: Group hug with the doormen at Infernos nightclub
When they followed this up with a video of Matthew on the dance
floor, sporting the baguette as willy substitute and with Harriet gripping it like Linda Lovelace, I switched off my phone and slumped down onto the sofa. Rupert jumped up next to me. It was becoming increasingly clear to me that I had spent the past ten years building a business around a concept that was flawed to the core. In a cruel twist to my idealistic plot, I’d been bringing people together only for them to, at best, drift apart, or, worse, destroy each other entirely.
I leaned forward and grabbed my iPad off the coffee table. With Rupert on my lap, tapping at the screen I searched the most recent emails from Dominic. I found the one I was searching for straight away.
Subject title: Eleanor’s Itinerary.
I double clicked on the attached document and quickly scrolled down through the list of experts:
Susan Villecox, Head of Department, Social Anthropology, Columbia University
Elspeth and Ernest Kennedy, Co-founders, The Relationship Restoration Ranch
Professor Sheldon, Neurochemical Enhancement Theorist Jed Tandy, Master of Neurolinguistic Programming and founder of Jed Tandy Inc.
Dr Gunnarsson, Dean of Social and Human Sciences, University of Iceland
Professor Takahashi, Founder, The Centre for Behavioural-Technological Advancement, Tokyo
Dr Menzi, Witch Doctor, YouTube broadcaster.
I thought about what Nick had said about not knowing what I was holding out for. Maybe my destiny wasn’t to merge with the Aryan herd of Clapham. Ten years ago, I’d set out to find the answers, and now all I had were yet more questions. When another selfie of Matthew popped up on Facebook, this time revealing tequila shots and running-man dancing, I realised that all of us in our own way were trying to escape the truth.
‘Maybe it is time for a change,’ I said, and Rupert jumped up and licked my face.
Chapter 8
Matthew gripped my hand as we hurried to the station. It was cold enough to see my breath in the air.
‘So let’s get this straight,’ he said. ‘This is your last night out in London, the cultural capital of the world, and you’re making us go to Blood Burger?’
‘Blood’s is cool.’
Matthew stopped, turned to me and took both my hands in his. ‘Ellie, my darling. You are the sun on my cloudy day, you are the port in my storm, you are the song in my heart. But cool, you are not. So please don’t call it Blood’s. Next thing you’ll be wearing Converse.’