If This Is Paradise, I Want My Money Back (13 page)

She goes back to her gorgeous little house, kicks off her shoes, switches on the telly and pours herself a large glass of Pinot Grigio, her tipple of choice. By now, she seems . . . actually quite OK after what’s just happened, but then, as I say, Fiona’s not a high/low type person like me or Kate. She’s not given to whingeing or sniffling or flinging stuff around the place in a temper, as we are. She tends to deal with knocks quietly, silently, inwardly, too proud to let any chinks in the armour show. Anyway, she slumps back on the sofa, looks wearily around her and takes a big, lovely, nerve-calming gulp of wine.

Then she picks up a pile of essays she’s lugged in from the car, and after correcting only two of them, with much flourishing of her red biro and mutterings of ‘that is NOT an answer’, she’s just about done draining off the glass of wine. It does the trick. In no time at all, she stretches her feet out on the sofa and starts to doze off, knackered from a long day’s work and a night’s being stood up, God love her.

Right then. That’d be my cue.

Don’t get me wrong, what I’m about to do is extremely tricky, this is my first go at attempting it, and I
really
have to concentrate. Every little detail has to be right or I’ll blow it. I remember back to everything I learned on my angelic crash course, really focus hard on what I’m trying to achieve, then, with a snore from Fiona that you’d nearly confuse with a Zeppelin passing overhead . . . I’m on.

Next thing I know, her eyes are wide open and she sees me. And what’s completely weird is that I know she’s fast asleep because the cushion she was lying on is now looking a bit like the Shroud of Turin, there’s that much make-up mashed into it. She sits up, looks right at me, blinks her eyes exaggeratedly, shakes her head, then slowly, in total and utter disbelief, she gingerly reaches out to touch me, patting me up and down my arms and shoulders.

Honest to God, it’s like something out of a cartoon.

‘Sweet Baby Jesus and the orphans,’ she eventually says, with her jaw somewhere around her collarbone. ‘Am I seeing things?’

‘No, babe, and apologies in advance if I gave you a heart attack. You’re not hallucinating, it’s me. Really.’

‘OK,’ Fiona says slowly, propping herself up on one elbow then rubbing her eyes incredulously. ‘The part of my brain that’s still functioning is telling me that this is a dream. I know it’s only a dream, I know right well this isn’t happening, but I’ll say this for my subconscious mind: bloody hell, it’s certainly done its revision. You look . . . well, just like you. You sound like you. You even
smell
like you. Clinique Happy, your favourite.’

‘Oh, Fi, do you know how good it is to be able to talk to you? I’ve so much to tell you, but we don’t have much time . . .’

‘I can’t believe this,’ is all she keeps saying, over and over. ‘This is so incredible! I just can’t take it in . . .’

‘Now, don’t get alarmed, hon, but there’s somewhere I need to take you, and we really need to go right now . . .’

She’s too dying for a catch-up chat though. ‘No, no, no, you’re not dragging me off anywhere till I talk to you. What the hell, if this is a dream it’s certainly the nicest one I’ve had in a long time, and it certainly replaces the horse’s head at the foot of the bed I’d probably be hallucinating about otherwise, given the nightmare of an evening I’ve just had.’

‘I know, babe. I was with you the whole time. And I hate to say “I told you so” about all those nutters you meet online, but wait for it, here it comes, no one can download love . . .’

OK, now she and I are doing this thing we do, whenever we haven’t had a chat for a good while (more than twelve hours, usually), of talking over each other excitedly, both of us tripping over ourselves to get our stories out. Honestly, you should see the pair of us in action, we’re capable of keeping three or four totally separate conversations on the go simultaneously, and still keeping perfect track of exactly what the other one is saying.

‘That’s so weird, I was thinking about you in the restaurant, God, I even emailed you . . .’

‘I know. Sure, I was standing reading it right over your shoulder . . .’

‘I do that a lot, you know. Email you, I mean, and sometimes I even phone your mobile, just to hear your voicemail message, it makes me feel like you’re OK . . .’

‘I
am
OK, I really am . . .’

‘Then I got back here, and I was just so stunned at being stood up like that. Was tonight boring? My God, I nearly spiked my
own
drink with Rohypnol. Then I got back here and kept thinking, I was just on a date; I should have a tongue stuck in my ear right now. Thing is, he sounded nice online, he really came across like one of the good ones, and you know me, Charlotte, I’ve pretty low expectations of men in general, but I just couldn’t believe that he’d go and do that . . .’

‘Mr Loves German Shepherds is clearly a rude bastard, and you’d a lucky escape if you ask me. He’s probably into threesomes and bondage, and all sorts of kinky shite.’

Then something strikes me.

‘Fi, can I ask you something?’

‘Anything you like. God, it’s just so good to see you.’

‘Do you go out on your own to meet fellas you pick up online a lot?’

‘Go on, love, rub it in, why don’t you? Yes, is the answer. You know me: if he’s straight, single and not in prison, then hey! He passes the Fiona Wilson test.’

‘But . . . what about all those times that I badgered you to come out with me and James, and you’d cry off? There was I thinking you were home alone, face stuck in the computer, and all the time you were out dating.’

Fi blushes a bit, but says nothing.

‘So, how come you never wanted to come out with me, instead?’

An embarrassed silence, but I can guess the answer before she even says it.

‘Because of James,’ we say together.

‘Oh, Charlotte, don’t be annoyed with me, it’s just, well, you know I’ve always found him . . . a tad challenging to get on with.’

‘But then, how come you never wanted to come out with me on our own? You know, on a girls’ night?’

She sighs. ‘Christ Alive, Charlotte, I could never in a million years say this to you, only that I know I’m dreaming, so none of this is real. It’s just that, even when he wasn’t around, you . . . well . . . you either talked about him all the time, or else you were constantly phoning and texting him to see where he was. I’m sorry, but I just hated seeing you in such a bad relationship. So besotted with a messer who clearly didn’t feel the same about you. Worse part was, the way you’d always stick up for him and make excuses for his crap behaviour, time after time. It’s like, you weren’t madly in love, you were
badly
in love . . .’

‘OK, get the picture, enough already,’ I cut her off, a bit brusquely.

Mainly because I feel just like I’ve been punched in the solar plexus. Was I that bad? That obsessed with James that I even drove my best friend away? And was it so obvious to everyone around me that I was wasting my time with a complete and utter fuckwit?

Everyone except me, that is.

Right, then. Let this be my epitaph. Let the word go forth from this time and place that I didn’t die in vain, because at least now I’ve come back to spread The Word. The gospel for single women the whole world over. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Love is blind, but friendship is clairvoyant.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. That hurt, didn’t it?’ says Fi. A deep breath, a big smile and a mental note that this isn’t about me. I’m on the other side of the fence now, and my job is to help my best pal find a loving, warm, gorgeous man who’ll make her happy, just like she deserves. Just like I never got.

‘Back to you, hon,’ I manage to say, sounding an awful lot more upbeat than I feel. ‘And that gobshite who just stood you up.’

‘Don’t talk to me. I couldn’t get my head around it, Charlotte, I really couldn’t. I mean, for God’s sake, look at me. I live in a flat where the curtains match the duvet covers, how can I be getting stood up in a restaurant? Surely that’s someone else’s life, not mine?’

‘You’ve just been romantically challenged, that’s all, but that’s what I’m here to fix, with a bit of luck . . .’

‘A lot of luck, more like. Might as well face it, love: up till now, my sad pathetic love life might as well have been sponsored by the people who make Kleenex . . .’

‘Honey, you need to take my hand,’ I interrupt firmly. Rude, I know, but I’ve no choice. If Fi and I get stuck into a major chat about her recent dating history, we’ll end up sitting here for the night and then my cunning plan is shot. ‘You could wake up at any second, and we’ve bugger all time to lose.’

‘I mean, I just don’t get it. I’m a nice, normal, reasonably OK-looking woman, living in a society where plenty of other nice, normal, reasonably OK-looking women have all been snapped up. So why is there something fundamentally un-marriable about me?’

‘Fiona . . .’

‘And I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t exactly have exacting standards when it comes to men in the first place. I mean, once they’re single, straight and can use a knife and fork without difficulty, then, hey, they’re in with a shot.’

‘Jesus, you don’t half talk a lot when you’re dreaming. Now would you ever shut up and take my hand?’

She does what I ask and, magically, it works, just like they taught me it would. Next thing, we’re both sitting side by side at the back of a packed church where there’s a wedding in full swing. The sun is beating in through stained-glass windows, an invisible choir is trilling away ‘Panus Angelicus’ and there’s the strongest smell of flowers . . . oh no, wait a minute, that’s just the Clinique Happy wafting up from me. Fiona looks around, a bit dazed, then looks down in horror at what the pair of us are wearing. She’s back in the jam-jar glasses and I’m in a horrible, purple flowery suit with big hair and waaaaaayyyyyy too much blusher. Hard to believe that the crap I’m kitted out in was all the fashion only six short years ago.

‘What are you trying to do to me?’ she hisses. ‘I was really enjoying this dream, and now you’re turning it into a nightmare . . . look at my glasses, for God’s sake. Deirdre Barlow from
Coronation Street
would be mortified to be seen in these.’ She whips them off and waves them in front of me. ‘This is a deeply humbling experience and I don’t know why you’re putting me through it. Can’t believe you even remember I used to wear these.’

‘God gave us memories that we might have roses in December.’ I smile back at her serenely, quoting Dad. ‘Besides, if you want to feel a bit better, look at the dress I’m in. It could double up as a cover for a Hummer, no problem.’

She sniggers, and I nudge her to shut up, as the besuited old geezer in front of us turns around to give us a filthy glare.

‘Hey, Charlotte, seeing as how this is all just a dream, any chance you could rustle up Brad Pitt to stroll by? Or one of the Wilson brothers: Luke or Owen, either one of them would do. You know me, I’m not fussy.’

‘Just shut up and put your glasses back on, will you?’ I hiss at her. ‘Then take a good, long look at the altar.’

She does as she’s told, and I swear I can physically see the blood draining from her face.

‘Oh shit, and double shit,’ she says so loud that the old man in front has another good glower at us. ‘Tim Keating’s wedding? You decide to take us back to Tim Keating’s wedding? Why would you do that? Did you maybe think it wasn’t icky enough for us the first time around?’

‘Just be thankful I didn’t take you back to the reception part, where you’ll recall that you decided it would be a great idea to get up and sing “Evergreen”. After your fifth vodka and tonic, that is. I just didn’t want to inf lict that memory on you out of the goodness of my heart, not that I’ll get any bloody gratitude for it.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, get us out of here, Charlotte, quick! Before he sees us!’

But I’ve brought her here for a very good reason, and there’s no way I’m letting her off any hooks yet.

‘Look, I know this may seem a bit weird . . .’

‘A BIT weird? Please, I’m redefining weird on a minute-by-minute basis.’

‘But if you ask me,’ I whisper, ‘that doesn’t look like a groom that’s deliriously happy to be taking his vows. And you needn’t tell me I’ve been watching too many soaps, either. I haven’t seen any telly at all since . . . well, you know . . .’

We both focus on the priest and, more importantly, on the bride and groom standing in front of him. The groom, in particular.

‘Do you, Tim, take this Ayesha to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?’

There’s a long, long pause and I shoot a significant look at Fiona.

‘I do,’ Tim eventually says, with a resigned half-smile.

‘I’ll bet he’s thinking about you,’ I whisper to her. ‘The woman he really wanted to marry, that is.’

Fiona looks at me like she’s been winded.

‘What are you trying to do to me?’ she asks, gobsmacked.

‘Bring soulmates together, that’s all.’

‘But he’s
married
! Or hadn’t you noticed? With kids and everything; twins, if memory serves.’

‘Like I told you on the wedding day, I give it six years, max,’ I say. ‘And it turns out it was one of the few things in my life that I was actually right about. So, when you wake up from this dream, just remember my words: those six years are now up.’

I could have added that no one knows her better than me, and no one else remembers how, whenever she was with Tim, it was like she was lit from within. I could have told her that I know he’s the only guy she ever dated who she still looks for in crowds, even after all this time. But I don’t want to push my luck, so I leave it there. No point in letting her see my grand plan for her just yet, no point in revealing the wizard behind the curtain. Tonight’s just about planting little seeds in her head, that’s all.

Or should I say, that’s all for now.

I wait till she’s settled back into another dream, then off I go, on with my angelic work, she sez, feeling fierce smug altogether. It’s gas; by now, I’ve finally accepted that time and space just don’t seem to exist on whatever plane I’m on, but the really amazing part is that I don’t seem to need any sleep, either. Or food. Or to keep running to the loo. All earthly and bodily functions seem to have been completely suspended for the time being. Which would have come in really handy when I was actually alive, but there you go.