Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating (43 page)

‘No, Tony,’ Lou said grimly. ‘I’m not pregnant.’

‘Oh, thank fuck for that!’ He sounded almost limp with relief.

‘I’ve got the flu. The doctor told me to rest for a week. I’ll be back in on Monday.’

‘
Monday?
But we’re showing the football tomorrow! You know what it’s like – we’ll be packed to the roof. And what about the stag we’ve got booked for Saturday? Jake and Paul’ll never cope.’

‘Jake and Paul will cope just great. And thanks for your concern. Great managerial skills, Tone . . . Really, the best!’

Lou hung up the phone and tossed it across the room. She was sick of Tony and she was sick of Kate. Well, they could both stuff it. She had a packet of fags, two bottles of red and hours of daytime TV stretching before her. As far as she was concerned, the world could take a running jump.

‘Oh my God, it’s so good to see you!’ A pale-faced Alice threw her arms around her friend and embraced her on the rain-soaked doorstep.

A few minutes later Alice and Ginny were sitting, tea in hand, in the warm kitchen, Ginny’s coat drying on the side. Several packets of biscuits lay on the table between them.

‘How long can you stay?’ Alice hoped she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.

‘As long as you like!’ came Ginny’s heavenly reply. ‘When you said you’d taken a day’s holiday, I knew it had to be an emergency; normally wild horses wouldn’t keep you from your clients. So I’ve left Scarlet with a babysitter. It’s part of our new regime: more quality time with adults!’

‘New regime?’ Even though Alice felt lower than she’d ever remembered feeling, the faintest whiff of positive progress in the Ginny/Dan situation instantly lifted her. ‘So, how did your weekend away with Dan go?’

‘Good!’ Ginny laughed happily. ‘We talked . . . a lot. And drank . . . a lot! And then we cried a bit, and then we shagged...
a lot
!’

‘Well, that’s great, isn’t it?’

‘God, yes! We hadn’t done it for a while . . . any of it! I think that was the problem.’

‘And how do you feel now?’

‘Better. We both do. It made us realize we both want to make the marriage work; not for Scarlet’s sake, but for our own! So we’ve decided to go to Relate. Our marriage is precious, and if we’re going to fix it we’re going to fix it properly; a quick papering over the cracks won’t do. We’re in this for the long haul.’

‘Wow, well done; that sounds like the perfect plan.’

‘Cheers! Well, it’s about time we started acting like grownups!’ Ginny grinned and bit into a biscuit. ‘Oh, and talking of growing up, I’ve realized something:
you
were right and I was wrong.’

‘I doubt that,’ Alice said sadly. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt right about anything. In the last few weeks, everything she thought she knew about life had been stood on its head.

‘I
am
lucky to have Dan,’ Ginny continued earnestly. ‘And the sun
does
shine out of his backside; I just got distracted and stopped being able to see it! In fact, whilst we were away I decided to take a leaf out of your book.’

‘
My
book?’

‘Yes: I’m going to start believing in happy-ever-afters!’ Ginny was too evangelical to notice Alice’s stricken expression.

‘Really?’

‘Why not? Self-fulfilling prophecies and all that. Isn’t it better karma to believe good things are going to happen?’

Alice’s lip trembled. She saw Ginny’s radiant smile and had to look away. ‘It’s just . . . I’m not sure mine is the best advice to be taking,’ she said weakly. ‘My book’s had a bit of a rewrite since you’ve been away.’

‘What do you mean? Are you saying the great Alice Brown no longer believes in happy endings?’ Ginny joked. But then she saw her friend’s face and the penny slowly dropped. ‘No! No way! That’s not allowed. If
you
don’t keep the faith, how are the rest of us supposed to? You not believing in love is like tea without biscuits, or snow in the summer. Is this why you’ve taken a day’s leave?’

And so Alice told her everything, from John’s confession to Emily’s surprise visit. As she spoke, the day grew darker, the rain got heavier and the girls’ tea went cold.

‘Well . . .’ Ginny said shakily when Alice finally finished speaking. Alice could see she was shocked. ‘You’ve always said nobody’s perfect!’ she offered limply.

‘I don’t mind him not being perfect. I just never thought he’d be a . . .’ – she hesitated, hating to say it out loud – ‘a
rent boy
.’ And she hadn’t. Of all the thousands of different Prince Charming scenarios Alice’s imagination had vividly conjured, she’d never pictured her man dating other women for money.

‘He’s not a rent boy; he’s an escort.’

‘Same thing,’ Alice replied miserably.

‘Is it?’ Ginny mulled it over. ‘I’m not an expert on all this rent-a-man stuff, but surely what he said isn’t out of the realms of possibility?’

‘What do you mean?’ Alice was astounded. She’d
expected Ginny to tell her to forget John and his very existence. She hadn’t expected her to mount the case for the defence.

‘Well, there’ve got to be some women who
do
just want a pretend partner for the night,’ Ginny reasoned. ‘I totally get that it could be embarrassing to rock up at certain events single, especially if your ex is going to be there. Why not hire yourself a good-looking man as a bit of armour? It doesn’t mean you’re going to have sex with him.’

‘Doesn’t it?’

‘No! Besides, I don’t think women really go for the paying-for-sex thing. Women want relationships and romance; they want to feel special, for sex to actually
mean
something. You should know that; you know more than anyone about what women want in a man. So why shouldn’t there be such a thing as an above-board gentleman escort? Especially nowadays when the whole world’s divorced and everything’s a “plus one”.’

Alice looked out of the window and thought. Ginny did have a point. If all the years of matchmaking had shown her anything, it was that – when you boiled it all down – women wanted love. None of her clients were motivated by sex. Besides, if all they wanted was a one-night stand, wasn’t it supposed to be easy? Weren’t there millions of men out there looking for a no-strings quickie? Wasn’t that why women came to her in the first place – to find someone who was looking for something more?

‘Look, Alice,’ Ginny said, interrupting her thoughts. ‘It’s your life. I can’t tell you the right thing to do, but I know
two things for sure. One: John made you happy, and two: you’re never, ever wrong about people.’

Alice bit her lip and looked into her lap.

‘Don’t you think you should just hear him out?’ Ginny asked gently. ‘You wouldn’t be promising anything; you’d only have to sit and listen.’

Alice frowned to try to keep the tears at bay. Ginny made it sound so easy, but it wasn’t. Nothing about it was easy. It was more complicated than a grandmasters’ game of chess.

‘Besides,’ Ginny prodded her, ‘didn’t you say his daughter was nice?’

Alice nodded. ‘Very.’

‘There you go: conclusive proof he’s telling the truth!’ Ginny declared. ‘Rent boys can’t possibly have nice daughters.’

There was a knock at the door.

With a watery smile, Alice wiped a runaway tear from her cheek and stood up.

‘Alice Brown?’ asked a man wearing a waterproof coat and an enormous grin. ‘These are for you.’ And he handed her a supersized bunch of chrysanthemums. Their immaculate white blooms shone in the gloom of the day.

‘Thank you.’ Alice sniffed in surprise.

‘Blimey; who are
they
from?’ Ginny asked as Alice returned to the kitchen table.

‘I don’t know. There’s no card.’ She examined the flowers.

‘Chrysanths . . . they’re a bit grannyfied, aren’t they? They always remind me of the hats the Queen Mum used to wear.’

‘They’re beautiful.’ Alice immediately leapt to the flowers’ defence. ‘Simple and unpretentious. They’re supposed to symbolize truth and loyalty.’

‘And they’re yours for £2.99 from any garage forecourt.’

‘Not these ones,’ Alice said admiringly. ‘They’re Pavilion chrysanthemums. Look how flawless their petals are. They’re brilliant specimens – perfect. They look like they were picked just a minute ago.’ As she inspected the flowers she felt herself being sucked in by their gravitational pull. Despite her heavy heart and spin-cycle head, just a few seconds in the presence of nature was all it took for her shoulders to feel a fraction lighter.

‘So, they’re from John, right?’ Ginny asked.

‘But how would he know I’m at home?’ Alice puzzled.

‘How would anyone know you’re at home? The only people who know are Audrey and the gang, and I can’t exactly see that old trout sending you flowers, even if they
are
old-lady ones!’

Alice’s mind was whirring. Could the flowers really be from John? He was the only likely candidate. And if so, should she accept them? Maybe she should run after the delivery man and ask him to take them back? But she looked at the flowers and at the protective way each snowy petal curled inwards as though guarding the middle of the bloom, like the world’s most exquisite layer of defence. It would go against her DNA to return them. So instead she put the kettle on and hunted for a vase.

Half an hour and another cup of tea later there was another knock at the door. The same delivery man stood
on Alice’s doorstep, still wet, still smiling, and this time brandishing a second bunch of flowers.

‘For you!’ He gave her a bow.

Alice took the bouquet in astonishment. ‘Thank you!’ she called after him as he retreated up the path, his feet splashing in the puddles as he went.

‘More flowers!’ Ginny exclaimed as Alice carried a huge bunch of carnations into the kitchen, their petals sprinkled with raindrops. ‘And more white! Any card?’

Alice shook her head.

‘Must be from a neat-freak,’ Ginny surmised knowingly. ‘Someone who doesn’t like colours messing things up. Either that, or the bloke’s got the deliveries muddled and these should be going to a funeral.’

‘You
can
send carnations in sympathy,’ Alice murmured thoughtfully, ‘but that’s not their normal meaning.’

‘Meaning? Flowers are just flowers, aren’t they?’

‘Well, yes. But traditionally flowers were symbolic. People understood what each variety stood for, and what it meant if you gave it.’

‘Yeah? So what do these mean, then?’

Alice looked at her bouquet. It was a simple arrangement: just plain carnations, surrounded by lush green fern.

‘Carnations – or rather, white carnations – are the flower of innocence,’ she explained. ‘Different colours stand for different things. A striped carnation means a refusal; a yellow one means disappointment. But these are the purest white. And the ferns around them – they mean something too. They’re supposed to symbolize sincerity.’

A silence fell on the kitchen as Alice drifted into thoughtful reverie.

‘He’s not moving,’ Ginny said suddenly. She was peering out of the kitchen window into Eversley Road. Alice followed her gaze. Sure enough, the flower delivery man was still there, sitting in his van, the windows beginning to steam up.

‘He’s probably just programming his satnav for his next delivery.’

‘Mmmm, probably.’ Ginny wasn’t convinced.

And sure enough, five minutes later he still hadn’t moved.

‘Something tells me you’re going to be getting his next delivery.’ Ginny frowned.

‘Don’t be silly. I don’t even know who these two are from.’

‘Of course you do!’ Ginny scoffed.

Twenty minutes later there was another knock at the door. This time both women scurried to answer it.

‘Here you go,’ the delivery man grinned.

‘Definitely for me?’ Alice asked in confusion. There was still no card.

‘You
are
Alice Brown, aren’t you? Yes, definitely for you!’

‘OK, Columbo: what do this lot mean?’ Ginny pounced the moment the front door was closed.

The women examined the colourful, rustic bouquet.

‘Irises are a faith flower,’ Alice explained. ‘Roughly translated, they mean “Don’t give up; have faith”.’

‘And the little pink ones?’ Even Ginny sounded excited.