The Woman Who Met Her Match: The laugh out loud romantic comedy you need to read in 2018. Fiona Gibson
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‘C’mon, you’re just a woman with a healthy appetite …’
‘That’s what Ralph said! Can we stop this? Please?’
Stu gives me a pained look as I slump onto a kitchen chair. ‘Hey, what does it matter what some idiot said? Forget all about it and move on to the next …’
‘There won’t be a next,’ I say firmly.
‘Aw, Mum, don’t be like that.’ Cam gets up from his seat, towering above me at well over six feet, pale arms dangling from the sleeves of his unironed grey T-shirt. He bends to give me a little squeeze.
‘No, I’ve decided, I’m coming off the site.’
‘But you’ve hardly met anyone yet,’ protests Amy.
‘I have, love. I’ve met three and that’s quite enough. I don’t think I can go through with this anymore—’
‘Oh, we’ll miss the reports,’ Stu says, pulling his trilling mobile from the back pocket of his scruffy jeans. Mercifully, this halts the interrogation. He snatches his ring-bound notepad from on top of the microwave and starts to scribble with his phone gripped to his ear. ‘Walnuts, cashews, agave nectar, medjool dates … yep, got all that …’
The kids amble off, and I load the washing machine as he falls into some light-hearted banter with the customer at the other end of the line.
Stu moved in with us last September, when his live-in relationship with Roz, an intimidating psychotherapist, finally fell apart. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, but he slotted in so easily that neither of us has seen any reason for him to move on – and of course the extra cash helps out. In fact, it was from a wine-fuelled chat around this very kitchen table that the idea for Parsley Force, Stu’s emergency forgotten ingredient delivery service, was launched. We’d had a craving for posh crisps, and I’d joked that it would be terribly handy if we could just call someone up and bark, ‘Salt and vinegar, please – 120 Pine Street!’ down the phone. Stu had remarked that, surely, people were always needing things: snacks, booze, a missing ingredient from a recipe. What they needed was a hero to deliver it to their door. He’d been working as a motorcycle courier but really wanted to set up something of his own. This, he decided, would be perfect.
‘But don’t people read a recipe right through before they start, to make sure they have everything?’ I asked. Apparently not, he declared with tipsy confidence. They just skim it and lurch right in and then … disaster! Dried mulberries are required! ‘So why wouldn’t they just run out to the shops? I mean, this is London, not the Shetlands. Shops are open all the time.’ Too busy, lazy or drunk, he reckoned. ‘Where will you buy the stuff?’ I asked.
Stu rubbed at his darkly-bristled chin. ‘Er, just in supermarkets, obviously, or delis, specialist shops, whatever. Basically, I’ll just be picking up all the annoying little things they’ve forgotten to buy.’
And so the business was born, with the aid of a hastily knocked-together Facebook page and some judicious advertising in local magazines. In partnership with his mate Bob, Stu took to zooming all over North London on his motorbike, giving me a fascinating insight into miniature dramas happening all over the city: ‘We crave cheese and we’re too drunk to drive!’ And – frequently – ‘Could you bring wine and cigarettes?’
‘But who’s Parsley Force for?’ I wanted to know, a few weeks into their venture.
‘People who call in help. The types who have cleaners, gardeners, all that.’
‘Not me, then.’
‘No, and you don’t need any of that because you have me.’
He’s right and, although I’d never imagined having a housemate at forty-six years old, I doubt if I could have found a better one. He leaves sauce bottles sitting on the table, lids off, but does loads of cooking and we never seem to run out of essentials anymore. He is incapable of grasping that bread doesn’t need to be stored in the fridge, but he can deal with a bird that’s flown in through the open kitchen window, catching it deftly in a tea towel before freeing it outside. He is not averse to running the hoover about, and on weekends, like an obedient Labrador, he goes out for the newspapers, which we lie about reading companionably.
He is handsome, certainly, in a mussed-up sort of way, and has been resolutely single since Roz called time on their relationship. Yet, when I suggested he tried online dating too, he gawped at me as if I had suggested colonic irrigation: ‘Christ, no thanks. Too many crackpots out there.’ Yet the meeting of crackpots is positively encouraged where I’m concerned.
He finishes the call now, shoving his phone into his pocket and beaming at me. ‘Ingredients for vegan cheesecake. She hadn’t realised her guests are vegan and she’s now having to rethink dessert. I mean, that’s not going to be a cheesecake, is it, by any stretch?’
And off he goes, just as my phone pings with a text: Would very much like to meet again, Ralph. What, to insult me some more about my fondness for baked goods?
Sorry, I reply, it was lovely to meet you, but I’m afraid there wasn’t any chemistry for me. Yep, that old line. Good luck with meeting someone, I add before deleting him from my phone.
The summer holidays used to be a source of low-level guilt for me – despite Pearl, our wonderful childminder, who soon became a close friend – but those days are gone. As Cam is working – albeit sporadically, helping to set up lighting for gigs – and Amy’s sporting activities continue all summer long, nowadays I can trot off to work, leaving them to their own devices with a fairly clear conscience. Plus, Stu is around much of the time, not as a surrogate father or anything, but as a reasonably sensible adult about the place.
Although it amuses Cam and Amy to think of me dragging women by the hair to our counter in the beauty hall, it doesn’t quite work that way. The approaching of customers is indeed called traffic stopping but no one is bullied or insulted. ‘My God, you’re really flushed! You need our new colour corrective powder!’ I once heard a consultant from a rival brand saying to an aghast-looking customer. But that is not our way at all.
‘Make a friendly approach,’ I was instructed during training by Nuala, our fresh-faced area manager, when I joined the company ten years ago. ‘No leaping out, scaring them, or accosting them with a mascara wand. You’re there to sell products, of course. But no one will buy so much as a hand soap if they don’t feel inclined, by which I mean happy and good about themselves. Your job is to help them feel that way.’
I soon discovered that traffic stopping isn’t as terrifying as it sounds. After all, it’s only make-up and skincare we’re offering, not a rectal examination. Today, I spot a woman pushing a buggy containing a sleeping baby and holding the hand of a little boy, and figure that she might appreciate a little pampering. As we have a stock of colouring books in a drawer under the counter, I am never put off by the presence of small children.
‘Excuse me,’ I start, ‘I wondered if you’d have a moment to try our new summer colours?’
The woman glances to the side as if I must be talking to someone else. ‘Oh, er, I don’t think—’ she blusters.
‘Wanna go,’ mutters her son, who looks about four years old, tugging hard on her sleeve. ‘Wanna go now.’
‘Oh, Archie, we’ve only just got here,’ she says wearily.
‘Why are we here? It smells bad. I can’t breathe!’ He stares at her, his breathing now coming in audible gasps.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ she groans as a terrible rasping noise emanates from his throat.
‘What’s happening?’ I exclaim. ‘Does