by Anna Bell
‘I’m afraid I can’t, love. Security and data protection. Without you knowing who I should contact, I can’t help you. I’m going to put the barrier up and then you’re to loop round the roundabout and come back through that side. You got it? No funny business.’
He’s actually wagging his finger at me as if he thinks I’m capable of funny business. If only I knew what funny business I could try. Even if I do get loose in the car park this site looks huge and I’d never find Mark.
I’ve just got to come up with another plan. Like waiting until he drives out from behind the barrier, that’s what I can do. I can then follow him back to wherever he’s staying.
‘Thank you,’ I say, smiling. Now that I have my new secret plan I drive as instructed round the roundabout and outside again. I then position myself in the lay-by further down the road where I’ll have a perfect view of him exiting. I turn the engine off and congratulate myself. Yes, if I look round I have an excellent view of gate F.
Uh-Oh – Gate F. That seems to imply there are multiple gates. I dig around in my bag to find my phone and pull up the internet. I hurriedly type in Kinetic-Co Farnborough directions and I click on a PDF map to download. As the colourfully illustrated map loads I see quite clearly that there are six gates on what appears to be a site the size of a small town. I had no idea that this place was so big.
I’m never going to be able to find Mark at this rate. I’ve got about as much hope as finding a needle in a haystack.
That’s it then. I turn on the engine and resign myself to my fate. With no other options for finding Mark I may as well head back to work before I get into trouble for going AWOL in the middle of the day.
Back at my desk I’m even more depressed. At least for the hour and a half this morning when I was pretending to work I was deluded into thinking that Mark was fifteen minutes down the road and that I could go and see him any time I want. Now I’m sitting here in the knowledge that he’s working on a site that is guarded like Fort Knox.
There’s nothing else for it. I’m going to have to actually do my work. I glance over my to-do list, trying to find the task that requires the least amount of brainpower, when I see number 6: find a venue for our graduate event. I clap my hands with delight. Not at the fact that I get to spend a whole two days meeting snotty-nosed, brainiac scientists, but because we usually host the day in a conference room. And where do you find conference rooms? In hotels.
We didn’t like the hotel we were in last year so it’s been on my to-do list forever to sort out a new venue. It hasn’t been high on my list of priorities to phone the venues and find out rates and availability, but now it seems terribly important.
I pick up my list of hotels that I printed off Yell.com weeks ago and I dial the first number and wait patiently as I go through to reception.
‘Good morning, Reddington’s Hotel, how may I help you?’
‘Oh, hello there. I just wondered if you were able to send me some information about your conference facilities. I’m looking to hire a place for a graduate recruitment day. We need one room that we could have lectures in, and then another where we could set up like a fair and have tables and chairs so that our staff could interact with the students.’
‘Certainly. We have several rooms that could fit that description. Did you want to make an appointment to come and have a look first or did you want to give me your email address and I can send you over some information?’
‘Just some information would be great at this point.’
I rattle off my email address details to the very helpful receptionist who makes me repeat everything back to him, and then he repeats the details back to me.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ I say, desperately trying to move the conversation on. ‘Also, I think we have one of our employees staying with you at the moment and I wondered if I could leave a message.’
‘Certainly. What was the name?’
‘Robinson. Mark Robinson,’ I say. Perhaps not what I should be doing on a work call, but I like to think of it as killing two birds with one stone. A bit of multitasking. At least this way I actually might achieve something workwise today, even if I am using the conference as a bit of a ruse.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Holmes, but we haven’t got him listed as a guest. Would he go under another name?’ asks the receptionist.
I think about this for a moment. Would he have gone under another name? What would he have picked? My mind is a whirl of possible names Mark could have chosen and then it hits me: Mark isn’t a famous movie star, and as far as I know this is the first time he’s run away to a hotel and I doubt that a fake name would have crossed his mind.
‘Miss Holmes?’ says the man on the phone. I’d almost forgotten about him.
‘I’m sorry, no, he wouldn’t be under another name. I must have the wrong hotel. But thank you for your help.’
‘No problem, and I’ll email you the corporate hire pack straight away.’
‘Great, thanks.’
I look down at the list – only another thirty to go. I hadn’t thought I’d phone all of the hotels on the list, as not all of them would have the conference facilities. But I might have to if I want to find Mark.
By the time I get to number thirty on the list I’ve almost lost the will to live. This place is also trying to do the hard sell and get me to visit.
‘I think I’ll just start with the price list,’ I say, trying to keep my cool.
‘OK then, I’ll send it over.’
‘Great. Also, while I’m on the phone, I think one of our employees is staying with you. His name is Mark Robinson. I wanted to drop something off for him.’
‘Robinson, hmm. Oh yes, here he is. M Robinson.’
I nearly bite through the biro I’m chewing – I’ve actually found him!
‘That’s great,’ I say, trying to hide the excitement from my voice. ‘I’ll drop it off later tonight.’
‘OK, great, and maybe while you’re here you can check out our conference facilities.’
‘What an excellent idea,’ I say, lying. Why was it that out of thirty hotels in the vicinity Mark had to pick the one with the pushiest sales team?
‘Thank you so much for showing me around,’ I say to Emma, the events manager at the hotel.
This hotel seems like it could be perfect for our needs, which is lucky as I did bunk off work just a little bit early to check it out. I just wanted to make sure that I caught Mark before he barricaded himself in his room. This way I can camp out in the lobby until he shows up.
‘It was my pleasure. Now you’ve got your full brochure there and an up-to-date price list. Just let me know if there is anything else you need.’
‘Thanks, Emma.’
I watch Emma disappear back out towards the conference room and I look around reception for the best place to wait.
‘Can I help you?’ asks the receptionist.
‘Um, yes, I was just waiting for one of your guests. Mr Robinson,’ I say, approaching the main desk.
‘He’s not picked up his room key yet tonight.’
‘That’s OK, I’ll just wait over there,’ I say, pointing to a group of upholstered chairs in the corner.
‘Perfect. Help yourself to tea and coffee from the machine.’
‘Thank you.’
What a nice hotel. I walk over to the coffee machine and get a coffee. It has been a long day and I didn’t sleep well last night – a coffee might be just the thing to perk me up. The chairs are perfectly placed near the lifts and opposite the reception desk, and more importantly they’re hidden from the main entrance and they can’t be seen when you walk in the door, so Mark won’t be able to see me and make a hasty exit.
I pick up one of the magazines and flick through it. It’s an in-date copy of Hello! magazine. I can never resist a magazine profiling the lives of the super-rich and famous, but today it is doing little to relax me. I’m a bundle of nerves sitting here waiting for Mark. I admit that perhaps drinking the coffee was no
t the best idea as I’m now on the wrong side of jittery.
I think I’m also freaking out the receptionist as I keep looking up at the clock behind her head. It’s 5.30 p.m. Mark should be arriving any time now.
The revolving doors start moving and I look up in anticipation and hold my breath. But it’s not Mark. It’s an old man wearing a mac over his suit and carrying a briefcase in his hand. As he walks over to the reception desk I go back to reading about celebrities I don’t recognise at an opening of an art gallery.
I look up from my magazine as suddenly I’m aware that I’m not alone in the chair area. There, standing in front of me, is the businessman who just walked in.
‘Hello, there,’ says the man. ‘I understand you’re looking for me.’
I look up at him, tilting my head to the side in Mark’s trademark move while I desperately try to work out what’s going on. ‘Eh?’ I say. It’s about all I can manage.
The man takes me speaking to him as a signal to sit down and he sits opposite me.
‘The receptionist said you were waiting for me. Now I know that Mrs Lexington said that she would be in contact but I didn’t think it would be this soon.’
Again I want to just say, eh? ‘I’m sorry, I think there might have been some mistake.’
‘I don’t think so. You’re after Mr Robinson, aren’t you?’
I nod my head slowly, wondering just what is going on.
‘Well, that’s me,’ he says, grinning from ear to ear.
‘I, um, I think there’s been a mix-up,’ I say, trying to work out who this man is and why he isn’t Mark.
The man sits upright and the smile drops off his face. ‘Am I not what you were expecting?’ he asks.
Not really, I want to say, but before I get a chance he launches into a bit of a rant.
‘I mean, Mrs Lexington just said that she’d have no trouble getting someone for me. I hadn’t realised that you would be fussy about it and that you’d judge me. I just thought that you came along and that we had dinner. If I’d wanted to be rejected in person I would have gone on Match.com. I’ll be telling Mrs Lexington that I’m not too impressed with her service and—’
‘There really has been a mistake. I don’t know who Mrs Lexington is and I don’t know who you think I am, but you’re not the Mr Robinson I’m after. I’m looking for Mr Robinson, my fiancé, who’s gone AWOL five days before our wedding. And I’m afraid, Mr Robinson, that you’re not him.’
‘Oh,’ he says. We both look at each other with new-found embarrassment as it dawns on me just what type of woman – or, more accurately – madam Mrs Lexington might be, and it dawns on him that I’m not his date/escort/hooker – Mr Robinson can delete as applicable.
Mr Robinson gets out of his chair, straightens his tie and says, ‘I do hope you find your fiancé.’ He then walks calmly to the lift and waits for it not so calmly; he jabs the up button about ten times in ten seconds.
I walk over to the receptionist. ‘That man who just got in the lift, is he the only Mr Robinson staying here?’ I ask.
‘Afraid so,’ says the receptionist. ‘Not your guy?’
‘Not even close,’ I say, sighing.
I thank the receptionist and walk out of the hotel.
I stand for a moment on the curb wondering just where I am going to go. With only five nights left before our wedding, time is running out. I have to find my missing groom and I have to find him soon.
‘Mr Mark Robinson, just where are you?’ I mutter under my breath in some cosmic hope that the universe will tell me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
This has to be the worst pre-wedding week ever. I’d planned to take Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off work to do spa-like treatments to myself. Getting myself primped and preened to be the most beautiful bride the world has ever seen. Yet in reality I’m going to have to spend the time trying to stalk my husband-to-be until I get a chance to talk to him.
Today at work has gone no better than it did yesterday. In fact today has been one of the worst days of my working life. Not only have I been so preoccupied that I agreed to let a number of key engineers all have Christmas off, which means I won’t be having a happy Christmas when my manager finds out, but one of our senior managers has got a secretary pregnant. Which has meant there have been a lot of meetings and sensitive whispering going on as we try to manage the situation.
I think that will see the end to our team-building weekends in Wales. Not that I mind that – I hated them with a passion. All that mud and seeing your colleagues in tracksuit bottoms – it was just wrong. But I would rather the Wales weekends had come to an end naturally than because a manager’s wife came tearing into our office and told us all what had actually happened in Wales.
It made me realise that I’m glad Mark wasn’t in his office yesterday and that we didn’t have a similar scene in front of his colleagues. Everyone has been tiptoeing around the manager and the secretary since the outburst and they’ve been treated like they’ve got bubonic plague. I wouldn’t have wanted to embarrass Mark like that.
Work-related disasters aside, my team gave me a lovely send-off before the wedding. A few of them are supposed to be coming to the evening do. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that there was quite a big likelihood that it wasn’t going to happen. Especially when I could see through the bag that there was a gift box in the exact colour you would get from Tiffany’s and in a size box that would fit champagne flutes nicely. Yes, I’m that shallow.
As it’s Tuesday, I’m going to my support group meeting. I can’t help but feel queasy when I push open the door to the community centre. If only I’d never come here to meet Josh for coffee. Out of all the places to pick, why did we come here? Not that I guess it would have changed things. Mark would have found out eventually. Maybe it was better that he found out what a lying toad he was marrying before he said I do.
‘Hi, Penny,’ says Rebecca, as I enter our little room.
‘Hi, Rebecca.’
‘You must be so excited – only a few more days to go before you’re married!’
I can’t cope any more. I’ve spent the last two days smiling and hugging work colleagues who kept popping over to give their congratulations and I can’t bring myself to do it with these guys too. Before I know it tears are rolling down my face. And when I say rolling, I’m talking rolling waves like over the top of Niagara Falls.
I’ve surprisingly managed to hold my tears in over the last couple of days but it’s as if the dam has been breached and all of a sudden I’m practically drowning in salty tears.
‘Oh, Penny, whatever is the matter? Was it something I said?’
‘No, it isn’t you,’ I say, hiccupping. ‘It’s the wedding. I don’t think it’s going to happen.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Mark found the bank statements and he knows I’ve been lying to him.’
There is a collective sharp intake of breath and I look through my foggy eyes and see that the whole of our group is sitting down ready and listening to me. I bet Mary wishes she could open every meeting like this as there are usually a few lingerers at the tea and coffee as she starts. But not today. Today, everybody is poised to hear my woes.
‘But haven’t you explained to him what you’ve done?’ asks Rebecca. ‘You’ve worked so hard, what with the group and your wedding planning on a budget.’
‘Oh yes, Penny. You’ve done wonderfully. Can’t he see that?’ says Mary.
‘I haven’t been able to tell him. When I got back from my hen do he’d gone. He went to his mum’s first and now I don’t know where he is. He hasn’t even let me explain.’
‘Well, surely when he knows the truth …’ says Mary.
I shake my head. ‘That isn’t all of it. There was a bit of a miscommunication with Mark’s nan. She saw me and Josh having coffee and she put two and two together and got five.’
My cheeks flush as Josh is sitting on the other side of the room looking confused. And the
n he laughs. OK, so I know Josh is slightly like an Adonis, but I’m sure if we were both single then it wouldn’t be out of the question that we could get together. Was it really that laughable?
‘She thought you and Josh were a couple?’ asks Mary.
And now she is laughing too. What is so bloody funny? Yes, I might have a little bit of a spare tyre around my waist, and OK, my hair isn’t in the best condition and I might be a little cross-eyed, but I reckon I could get a Josh. It just makes me cry even harder to think that people find me that unattractive as a person. Don’t personalities count any more?
‘Penny, I’m gay,’ says Josh.
‘You’re what?’
‘Gay,’ says Josh slowly.
‘But what about Mel?’
‘What about him?’
Oh. Mel is a him. I thought – well we all know what I thought. Now on top of feeling sad I feel like an idiot. Could my day get any worse? Don’t answer that as yes, it quite possibly could.
‘Right. Well, it doesn’t matter if you’re gay or not. Mark doesn’t know that and Mark doesn’t know that I’m not having an affair with you either.’
I’m still slightly shocked that Josh is gay, but I guess that just reinforces how little we actually know about each other. It is all so frustrating; if only Mark could see that.
‘So what are you going to do?’ asks Rebecca.
‘I don’t know. I went to his work and he’s working off site all week and I tried to go there and they wouldn’t let me in. I tried to find what hotel he was staying at but that didn’t go very well.’ The image of the man in the mac floats into my mind before I shake my head and get rid of it. ‘I don’t know what else to do. It’s all such a mess. And when everything had come together as well. I’ve worked so hard to plan the wedding and now he’s not going to see any of it.’
‘Don’t say that,’ says Mary. ‘You’ve still got a few days to go. Maybe he’ll want to sort it out once he’s calmed down. Have you told his family the truth? Couldn’t they talk to him for you?’
‘I’ve told his nan; I couldn’t face telling his mum. I’ve got both of them trying to contact him to tell him he needs to speak to me, but he won’t pick up the phone to them either. He seems to be shutting everyone out.’