The Three Suitors

      I head straight for the front door. I get as far as the entry hall when a man approaches me, standing too close. The alcohol fumes are coming off his skin so thickly I can practically see them, mixing with his sweat.

      I step back and he steps forward. I step back again and stick my arm out, visibly warding him off.

      His hair is silver, to the middle of his neck, and slick. ‘Let me get you a drink,’ he says.

      I cannot believe this surreal nightmare of a party is actually getting worse. ‘No thank you.’

      ‘You sure, sweetheart?’ Indiana Jones would get away with calling me sweetheart. This man cannot. His shirt is silk and purple and has way too many buttons undone.

      ‘Completely certain.’

      He doesn’t even try to disguise the fact that his eyes are moving up and down my body, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, lingering at my breasts. ‘I’ll go get us some mineral water. We need to keep hydrated. Trust me. I’m a doctor.’

      I am all too aware of the verbal manoeuvre – this attempt to encroach upon me by speaking as if he and I are a team, followed by his bad joke. I begin to walk away but the man puts a hand on my waist.

      ‘Take your hand off me now.’ Anyone who knows me would hear the dead seriousness of my voice.

      But this man does not know me. When he tightens his grip on my waist and starts to move the front of his body towards mine I unbalance him with exactly enough force to leave him two choices. Let go of me, or fall over. He takes option one.

      ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ The man shakes his head and squeezes his eyes and moves his mouth from side to side. Then he lurches upstairs.

      I brush off my hands. Once. Twice. Firmly and completely done.

      But there are two consequences of these mild physical exertions. The first is that a lock of hair has escaped the low knot at the nape of my neck. The second is that your stupid dress flew open without my noticing because when I look down I see that my skimpy black underwear is showing and I remember why I hate this wrap style that you love.

      This is when I realise that another man has come into the hall. He has been watching the entire show, so unmoving in the shadow cast by the stairway I haven’t noticed him. He must have seen the spectacle of the gaping dress before I readjusted it.

      The man’s black eyes are creased at the corners, I think in amusement. Beyond that, his expression is neutral. My guess is that he is ten years older than I am. The age you would be. Maybe, just maybe, the age you are. Though his face is young, his hair is grey. It’s peppered a little with black. He is one of those model-beautiful grey-haired men.

      ‘I’d like to offer you a drink,’ he says, ‘but I can see that might be dangerous.’

      ‘Well you would be correct,’ I say. I double-check that there isn’t even the slightest visible tremble in my fingers. There is not.

      ‘I’m Adam,’ he says.

      I manage to incline my head slightly in response. It is not that I am trying to be rude to him, even though that is probably what he will think. It is that I need a few more seconds to collect myself before I can speak properly.

      ‘And you, clearly, are the woman with no name. I’ll call you the Kickboxer.’

      ‘That wasn’t remotely like kickboxing. That was gentle dissuasion.’

      He actually smiles. ‘And you’ve gently avoided telling me your name.’

      ‘Ella.’

      He repeats the word as if it were a question, as if he has decided he likes it.

      I squint at him. ‘Have I seen you somewhere before?’

      ‘If I’d seen you before, I’d remember,’ he says.

      ‘Good one.’ I start to walk away, only to be stopped by Brian, who has somehow extricated himself from Sadie to come in search of me.

      ‘I wanted to check you’re okay,’ he says.

      ‘Fine. Thank you.’

      Brian looks uncertain, but he nods. ‘Glad to see you’ve met Adam.’ His frown is at odds with his words. ‘I’ll leave you two to talk.’ He looks over his shoulder, then disappears upstairs, taking them two at a time.

      ‘Brian seems …’ Adam falters.

      ‘Throwing a party can be stressful,’ I say.

      ‘You’re right. And I owe you an apology.’

      ‘For what?’

      ‘That line about how I’d remember you if I’d seen you before. It was cheesy.’ He waits a beat. ‘But true.’

      For so long, I haven’t properly grasped why you adored male attention. Your need for it bordered on mental illness. But this man’s admiration makes me warm, which isn’t something that happens to me very often.

      ‘Let me guess,’ I say. ‘You’re a doctor?’

      He smiles again. ‘You have the gift of mind reading.’

      ‘My sister used to say that.’ There really is something familiar about him. All at once, I see what it is. It is that he is a type. He is your type. The tall, dark and handsome type. This man is commanding, but he is restraining his power, a tension you always found irresistible. I am discovering that I like it too.

      ‘I need to be somewhere,’ I say. Somewhere as in, not this new love nest of Sadie and Brian’s. Somewhere as in home, where there are no doctors to interrogate me. And where there is no supposed-friend to shoot barbs at me.

      ‘Somewhere interesting, I hope,’ he says.

      Is he like this with patients, too? Does he make anybody he talks to feel as if they are the most fascinating person he has ever met? A lot of men couldn’t do this without being sleazy, but this man is gentlemanly, urbane-seeming. The type of man Ted would hate and you would adore. But Ted, as I am all too aware, is not here.

      ‘Lovely to meet you,’ I say.

      ‘Can I see you again? I have a fondness for the martial arts.’

      ‘I am not in the habit of seeing strange men. Especially not strange men who tease me.’

      ‘I’m not strange. But yes, I couldn’t stop myself from teasing you. I’m sorry about that.’

      ‘That was not a sincere apology.’

      ‘Perhaps not.’ He takes out a business card and offers