Love Rules (20 page)

‘I would really like you to see one of our osteopaths,’ Thea recommended, ‘Dan and Brent are both excellent. But you have to promise me not to cancel – I know you're busy but believe me, it's a false economy to turn your back on the odd hour of osteopathy. I can ask the guys if they can schedule you in for an early or a late. Failing that, I'll ask if they know of a practitioner nearer to your work.’

‘Thanks, Thea,’ Mark said, ‘I appreciate it.’ He bent down gingerly to pick up his briefcase.

‘Lower yourself, don't bend! Lower like a child does – they squat, keeping their backs straight, they never stoop. And lift like a weightlifter – face straight ahead.’

Thea insisted Mark put his briefcase back down and they made a few practice lowers and lifts. He marvelled at the simplicity but efficacy of the technique. He did it again. ‘Christ – thanks, Thea.’

‘No problem,’ Thea smiled, ‘and don't roll your neck like that!’

‘Sorry,’ Mark said sheepishly.

‘Buy a packet of frozen peas on your way to work, wrap it in a towel and plonk it on your neck,’ Thea suggested.

‘Peas?’

‘Sweetcorn will do too. And take it easy, please,’ Thea
said gently, ‘or just a little easier. At work and at home.’

However, by then Mark had put his jacket on and his guard up.

There was nothing a good full English breakfast couldn't cure and though Saul had woken with a cracking hangover, two sausages, eggs, beans, bacon and fried bread later he felt revived and clear-headed. He'd just go back and tidy Thea's flat and then make his way into town. As miserable and rainy as the previous day had been, it was now a sparkling spring day. With the aesthetic wizardry of sunlight and clear skies on a March Monday, Crouch End resembled a bustling, self-contained, relatively picturesque market town. Strangers greeted one another cheerily, mothers promenaded cutting-edge buggies boasting babies resplendent in bright knits and cute hats, pensioners dawdled happily, catching up on the price of this and the cost of that and wasn't yesterday's weather
atrocious
. Pairs jogged to and from Priory Park, shopkeepers stood outside their premises grinning at nothing in particular and friends gossiped as they made their way to Banners for smoothies and comfort food. Saul thought how Hollywood would pay big bucks for such a scene; quintessentially English due to the balance of local architecture, local colour and local characters. As if on cue, a talented young television actor passed by Saul and said ‘All right, mate?’ as he went. ‘Hiya,’ Saul replied. He was in a very good mood.

Peter Glass wasn't. Peter Glass was actually in a full-blown foul temper. He'd invested hours each day, over a number of weeks, in a potential buyer who that morning had pulled out at the last minute without so much as an apology, let alone an explanation. So the luxury trip to the Seychelles was off. And so was upgrading the Beemer.

‘All right, babes?’ Peter said to Thea in a hollow voice
and with a face like thunder. ‘If you can massage away the aggression I feel, I'll pay you double.’

‘You don't need to pay me double,’ Thea assured him, ‘just lie down and I'll let your body guide me. Trust me. Try to clear your mind. Try not to talk.’

‘I could fall asleep,’ Peter murmured, an hour later.

Thea looked at her watch. She had an hour's space before her next client. ‘Just relax for a while, Peter, I'll come back in a mo'.’ Actually, Thea returned forty minutes later and gently woke him up.

One ballet dancer, a pregnant woman and a tennis coach later, Thea's last client for the day is Mr Sewell. She has continued to call him Mr Sewell though he is now a regular client and even occasionally divulges quite personal information with no warning and certainly no prying on her part. Recently, he'd expressed his concern that his neck felt no better though he was much happier in himself having returned to his wife. On his last visit, he'd actually started reciting lines from the new Ricky Gervais television series and had laughed so much the bed had shaken.

Souki meets Thea on her way down to the waiting room. She's holding a latte and a muffin. ‘Mr Sewell is here,’ she says, ‘and so is Saul. With coffee and cakes for us all, bless him.’

‘Hullo, Mr Sewell, would you like to go on up and get ready,’ Thea says, giving Saul the same nod she gives all her clients, ‘I'll be with you in a moment.’

Saul waits for Mr Sewell to disappear upstairs. Thea could murder that muffin. It had been an early start and a long day.

‘I'm starving,’ she says. She approaches Saul who is offering her the cake. He snatches it back as she's about to take it. ‘Hey!’ she protests.

‘Say yes!’ Saul says. ‘If you say yes, the muffin is yours.’

‘Yes?’ says Thea. ‘Whatever – yes
please
.’

‘But you don't know what you're agreeing to!’ Saul exclaims.

‘I'm so hungry I'd agree to anything,’ Thea assures him.

‘Really?’ he says, a veritable twinkle to his eye. Thea nods, literally licking her lips. Still he holds the muffin aloft. ‘Would you say yes to a Gimp Mask and PVC crotchless knickers?’

Thea regards him as if he's mad. ‘Yes, yes, now give me the sodding muffin – I'm going to be late for Mr Sewell.’

‘Would you say yes to moving in together?’ Saul says, offering her the cake.

Thea's heart leaps into her mouth while her stomach somersaults and Saul's proposal fills her head. Suddenly, there is no room for cake. And she can't find her voice and time stands still and poor Mr Sewell is in his underwear, face down on the bed in the room at the top.

‘Well,’ Saul says, ‘are you going to say yes?’

Thea stares at him.

‘Is that a yes?’ Saul asks, jiggling the cake temptingly.

Thea gulps.

‘Live with me, be with me,’ Saul implores, ‘let's move in together, live with each other for ever and ever. Live happily ever after.’ He picks out a chocolate chip. ‘Say yes – and the muffin is yours.’

Thea blinks, grins and nods. Yes, she mouths. ‘Yes!’ she laughs.

‘Fantastic,’ Saul says, ‘and all for the price of a muffin.’ He turns her around to face the stairs. ‘Back to work, missy,’ he laughs, giving a gentle shove to her bottom, ‘see you later.’

Thea is five minutes late for Mr Sewell.

‘Sorry to keep you,’ she apologizes quietly. She puts the muffin down on the table. She knows that she'll be in a quandary whether to eat it or keep it for sentimental posterity.
‘Now,’ she says to Mr Sewell, ‘how's that back of yours?’

‘Not bad,’ he says, lifting his head a little, ‘how are you?’ It's the first time Mr Sewell has ever asked Thea anything remotely personal. She's slightly taken aback. ‘Oh, fine,’ she breezes, ‘I'm fine, thank you.’ She lays her hands lightly on Mr Sewell's back, closes her eyes and inhales deeply. She controls her exhale while she moves her palms up his back to his neck, strokes out along his shoulders, sweeps down and up his arms, squeezes along his upper arms and then swoops her hands back over his shoulders and down his back. He sighs with relief and pleasure. His body feels good to her. Much softer and more receptive than on his last visit. It's an easy massage to give.

Cohen & Howard

Alice held Thea very close as she embraced her. And when she sensed Thea was ready to pull away, she held her tighter still. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘I'm so pleased. It's the right time. It's brilliant news.’

‘Do you think I'm doing the right thing?’

‘You have to ask?’

‘Are you happy for me?’

‘You have to ask?’

‘You do think that Saul is The One For Me, don't you?’

‘You have to
ask
?’

Alice and Thea gazed at each other, manic excitement manifest and contagious in their dancing eyes and slight breathlessness.

‘So,’ Alice said, ‘there we have it. We're all grown up, you and I. God, I'll probably be pregnant by your house-warming party,’ Alice said with a slump to her shoulders, ‘and I'll be confined to wearing some God-awful kaftan and support tights.’

Thea looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I wasn't really thinking of house-warming parties. But are you really thinking about pregnancy?’

‘I can't see how my marriage will survive if I don't,’ Alice reasoned, a little darkly.

‘Shit,’ Thea exclaimed, ‘don't say that. You're not serious? I mean, I know you've been low – ambivalent even – but we've talked through it all, haven't we. Time and again. Surely you are not considering a baby to hold the answer?’

Alice was quiet. She regarded Thea with a meekly apologetic pursing of her lips. ‘I'll never forget your mother begging you to be the glue to keep your father from leaving. How old were you? Fifteen?’

‘Fourteen,’ Thea corrected.

‘When did you last see him?’ Alice asked.

‘Three years ago?’ Thea estimated.

‘It's interesting,’ Alice said quietly, ‘how divorce affects a child by shaping their attitude towards love as adults. Many become totally averse or utterly cynical to long-term relationships. You come from a pretty poor example of marriage and yet it seems it's given you the determination to truly believe in lasting love. It would make an interesting article for
Adam
– how
blokes
are affected by their parents' relationships.’

‘Well, it seems you and I have struck lucky with Saul and Mark then, as they both come from good stock,’ Thea mused.

‘You make them sound like prize rams – in fact, you sound like your mother!’ Alice laughed. Her expression changed, she placed the back of her hand against Thea's cheek. ‘You have always imposed somewhat fairy-tale proportions onto love and eternity. I know I tease you. And sometimes, it
has
landed you in a pickle. But ultimately, I think it's your greatest strength. I may rib you for being a hopeless romantic but actually I admire you for it.’

‘You don't mind that I don't believe in your theory that your phenyl-something is the cause of love?’ Alice laughed and shook her head. ‘When I was little,’ Thea said cautiously,
‘the only way to block out the noise of the rows, the only way to put something pretty into my life, was to lose myself in this imagined world of heroes and heroines triumphant in love.’

‘Well, now you have your hero in Saul,’ Alice said conclusively.

‘And you have yours in Mark,’ Thea said, adding a note of warning to her voice. ‘Do not use a baby as glue, Alice, please.’

Alice regarded her wedding ring thoughtfully. ‘Glue, Sellotape, Velcro,’ she said quietly, ‘some type of weather-tight bonding is needed, that's for sure.’

‘Bonding,’ Thea said, musing over the word. ‘It'll be within you, within the home itself,’ she said decisively, ‘you'll just have to patiently seek it out.’

‘And there ends our correlation between love and sticky stuff,’ Alice proclaimed. ‘There are only so many metaphors a girl can take in her lunch hour.’

‘Love
is
sticky stuff,’ Thea shrugged with a wink, ‘if we're talking fellatio.’

With his sharp suit, loud tie and verbal swagger, the estate agent at Cohen & Howard reminded Thea of Peter Glass but as Saul didn't know Peter Glass, and as Thea assumed that all estate agents were probably alike, she didn't comment. Just then, with the agent slicking back his already product-laden hair and rolling a fat Mont Blanc pen avariciously as if it were a cigar, Thea wondered whether they should have consulted Peter instead. He'd been in that morning. On a roll. Deposit paid for Seychelles ultra luxury. Upgrading the Beemer to a Merc. Taking a new girlfriend to Chinawhite. Hardly aware of the crick to his neck.

‘Miss Luckmore,’ the estate agent was saying, ‘will Cohen & Howard be handling the sale of your property too? We
do have an office in Muswell Hill – and market share in N10, N8, N22.’

‘We would consider it,’ Saul butted in, enunciating his vowels an octave lower than Thea had heard before, ‘for a drop in your commission to 1 per cent, bearing in mind that you'll be handling the sale of my property and most probably arranging our purchase too.’ Thea didn't mind that Saul had answered for her. She found it quite touching. Plus he was saving her 1.5 per cent which would probably pay for an IKEA kitchen. ‘If we can agree on such a commission,’ Saul was saying, ‘you may have both premises to market.’

‘Immediately?’ the agent asked with a lip-lick of gleeful anticipation.

Saul and Thea looked at each other. Saul raised an eye-brow and a smile broadened. Thea bit her lip – not with reservations but to quell a rising chirp of excitement. ‘Immediately,’ Thea told the agent.

She and Saul left the office with a clutch of property particulars and, with arms linked and a skip to their stride, headed for Patisserie Valerie on Marylebone High Street to peruse the details over coffee and cake. For a day devoted to the exposing of fools, April 1st for Saul and Thea was proving to be a day in which they were making some very wise moves. Saul put his arm around Thea's waist and pulled her close to him, giving her a smacking kiss to her temple. She beamed up at him. ‘I'm so excited!’ She started babbling about Shaker-style kitchens and granite worktops and Smeg fridges in retro pink. She enthused about Purves & Purves for rugs, that she'd seen Mies van der Rohe style Barcelona chairs on the web for a bargain. With a footstool and no delivery charge. Perhaps in cream. ‘Designers Guild for fabrics!’ she exclaimed. ‘And can we buy a superking-size bed? I love Farrow & Ball paint colours.’ She was hopping and weaving in her excitement. ‘Bridgewater!’ she beamed,
standing outside the eponymous shop. ‘Oh my God, I
adore
her crockery.’ A few steps later, Thea was darting over the road and pulling Saul into the White Company. ‘Divine!’ she repeated as she ran her hands lightly over the stacks of linen. ‘Let's make the bedroom a peaceful haven of muted tones. Mushroom. Ecru. Flax. Calico. Vanilla.’

‘His and Hers waffle towelling robes?’ Saul suggested, twirling one against himself, his gentle sarcasm totally lost on Thea.

‘Actually,’ she replied artlessly, ‘the Conran Shop's the place for bathrobes – we could look at prices after we've had tea.’

Even an old-fashioned homewares shop caught Thea's attention as they strolled on and she enthused about their exhaustive range of Vileda mops and accessories. Jabbering on about cream carpets, Venetian mirrors and terracotta chimineas for patios, she danced in front of Saul so that he almost tripped, wrapping her arms around his neck and standing slightly on tiptoes to kiss and kiss him some more. Calmly, he encircled her waist with his arms, lifted her up and continued to walk towards Patisserie Valerie while Thea laughed and embraced him as he carried her.