Match Me If You Can

‘Just don’t expect me to be your best man, or woman, or whatever.’

He smiled. ‘Magda might find it a bit too twenty-first century to have you handing out the rings on our wedding day.’

His words caved in her tummy again. ‘Well, being from the twenty-first century herself …’

Richard shook his head. ‘We’ll work on your congratulations speech, shall we? I’d like us all to have dinner. Magda is dying to meet you.’

‘I can hardly wait.’

Some people sought refuge in the arms of a lover. Others enjoyed the warm embrace of a spicy Pinot Noir.

Red wine just gave Catherine a headache and relationships were usually a pain in the other end. Her job was her sanctuary.

It was a short walk from the restaurant to her office in Covent Garden and her thoughts cleared a little with each step. By the time she reached her doorway on the busy little street and politely moved aside the drunk teen she found there, she knew that her reaction to Richard’s news wasn’t really about him, or them. It was about her.

She’d just assumed that she’d be first to find love again after their divorce. She was the one looking, not him. So how had someone who never made it out of first gear overtaken her on the road to romance? She’d stalled along the way and her roadside assistance membership was out of date.

The office’s security door latch closed with a satisfying thunk, cutting off all the noise from the road. As her eyes swept over her reception area, taking in the colourful oil paintings and the richly patterned overstuffed sofa, the hungry little worm that was wriggling its way into her psyche paused for breath.

Work always did that.

In her office her desktop phone blinked with a message. Should she answer it?

She definitely shouldn’t. It was after ten p.m. It could wait till morning.

But the light taunted her. What else are you doing tonight? it whispered. Going home to watch another rerun of Don’t Tell the Bride? Come on, you know you want to.

She snatched the receiver and punched in the answerphone code.

‘You have one new message. Message received at eight fifty-two p.m.’

‘Catherine? This is Georgina. Did you mean to set me up with a dairy drinker?’

She made it sound like she’d been out with a mass murderer.

‘I’m sorry but I can’t see him again. The dairy thing is just too weird.’

Well actually, thought Catherine, it would have been weird if he’d shoved a wheel of Brie down his trousers. Pouring milk in his coffee was pretty normal.

But she wouldn’t argue with Georgina, even though her client’s list of technical requirements made a NASA space launch look simple. If she wanted a lactose-intolerant man who played piano and didn’t chew gum, then Catherine would find him.

That was her job, for better or worse.

Matchmakers had it easier before the internet, when clients were just grateful to have a choice beyond their next-door neighbour and the second cousin with the squint.

Now everyone went online, picking out partners like they did an expensive pair of shoes – they had to fit perfectly and be suitable for the occasion, and be the right height, eye-wateringly beautiful with no sign of wear and tear, coveted by friends and colleagues and impressive to mothers.

Clients like Georgina thought finding love was as easy as ordering from ASOS.

Catherine scrolled through some more options in her database. Georgina hadn’t been on their books long but she’d already worked her way through most of their ‘A’ list. When she’d first signed Georgina as a client she’d seen the stunning, successful, secure thirty-one-year-old as a welcome addition. A woman for whom love was just around the corner. That corner was turning out to be in a maze the size of a football pitch. The dairy disaster was just the latest dead end.

But Catherine hadn’t earned her reputation as London’s Best Date Doctor (Evening Standard, 2014) by giving up. She was a peddler of hope, even when it was hanging by a dairy-free thread.

She could talk to Richard about including the client’s world view on ice cream in their Love Match assessment form. But where would that lead? One minute you’re measuring gelato love and the next you’d have to sort the toothpaste squeezers from the rollers.

And really, none of that mattered.

If only clients like Georgina would get that through their heads. A partner splurging for dinner or throwing his socks in the laundry didn’t make up for jealousy or thoughtlessness or emotional distance. Good grooming was no compensation if your date bored the snot out of you and, at the end of the day, relationships didn’t work without that spark anyway.

Despite the fact that she was definitely still mad at him, Catherine found herself thinking of Richard.

Sparks had never been their problem.

He’d made her laugh from the first time they met at uni. By the time classes broke up for the summer holidays he’d been making her laugh for months, as they progressed from shag buddies to something ever-so-slightly more serious. Her spare knickers found their way into his bottom drawer but she didn’t stake any claim to his bathroom cabinet or stock her favourite tea in his kitchen. Theirs was a relationship built by stealth over years.

Magda the Marriage-Seeking Missile clearly had a different timetable.

As she chewed over his news in the calm of her office, Catherine knew she didn’t mind Richard getting remarried per se. Or even that he’d proposed to someone who probably spoke in texty acronyms (she LOL’d at the very idea). After all, getting divorced was Catherine’s fault. Besides, she wasn’t in love with him.

It was just that he made it seem so easy with Magda. Where was all the hard work and second-guessing and foot-dragging she knew to be part and parcel of a relationship with Richard?

If it wasn’t there, that must mean she’d been wrong. Those things weren’t integral to Richard. They were integral to Richard when he’d been with her.

That smarted.

It was after midnight by the time she let herself into the quiet house. Eerie blue telly light bathed the front room, where Sarah lay curled on the sofa. She looked like a different person with her expression uncoiled in sleep.

As Catherine turned off the telly, Sarah snorted herself awake.

‘I might have nodded off,’ she said, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. ‘I was watching a proper good documentary just now.’

‘You mean a cookery programme, don’t you, Sarah Lee?’

Sarah grinned at the nickname that Catherine had given her after tasting her lemon sponge.

‘No,’ said Sarah, shaking her head. ‘I mean a real documentary. There was this Greek man who moved to the US in the 1960s and started a pizza restaurant, but his business was stuffed because he wouldn’t modernise. It was really sad. He almost lost his family and his livelihood, but he turned it around in the end. It was ace.’

She beamed at this happy ending.

‘You’re talking about Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares,’ said Catherine.

Sarah giggled. ‘It was really moving, though Gordon shouldn’t shout and swear so much.’

As usual, thought Catherine, she’s missing the point. ‘It wouldn’t get the same ratings if he was nice. Besides, Mary Berry has the market cornered on loveliness in the kitchen.’

Sarah got a faraway look just thinking about her idol. She swung her long legs off the sofa to let Catherine join her.

‘You’ve been running?’ Catherine said, noting her housemate’s jogging bottoms and baggy wrinkled tee shirt.