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‘Interesting,’ she says at last. ‘Not what I would have pictured as your type, but he’s got a nice face. He’s certainly a step up from Josh. How was the sex?’
‘Really? You’re going to do this now?’
‘Why, wasn’t it any good?’
‘It was very nice, if you must know.’
‘Hmm. I’m guessing it was better than very nice, because you’re being surprisingly coy about it.’ She smiles.
‘It’s not just about the sex,’ I caution her.
‘Oh, I know. I’m sure you had lots of romantic strolls and gazed into each other’s eyes under the stars, and all that stuff. But if the sex is no good, none of that really counts.’
I don’t know how to reply to that, so I sit back as she scrolls around the site a bit more and sips her coffee.
‘Right,’ she pronounces, after a few minutes. ‘It was a good idea, but looking at his profile it looks to me as if he set up the account and hasn’t used it since. There’s no activity that I can see at all. Normally, you’d expect to see some job updates, maybe some qualifications, and a network of connections. This has none of those. So, I don’t think he’s seen your message. But you know where he works now, so maybe you can get in touch that way. Shall we go and get something for tonight?’
We head into the supermarket, where I stock up on the essentials before she helps me to take it all back to the flat and unpack it. Having done that, she settles herself into the sofa and watches as I start to prepare something for us to eat. After a while she speaks again.
‘It’s nice here. I like it. I think you’ll be very happy.’
‘I hope so,’ I reply. It’s true. The flat has a good feel to it, and I’m looking forward to curling up in my new bedding later. I’m a little intimidated by some of the appliances; as well as the coffee machine that Mads couldn’t fathom out, the dishwasher and washer-dryer both look much more complicated than they need to be. Thankfully, the owner has left instruction manuals, so I’ll check those out when I need to.
Over dinner, Mads fills me in on her Scottish trip and shows me pictures of a couple of guys she’s currently messaging on Tinder. They’re fairly standard Mads fare and I’m sure she’ll chew them up and spit them out in the same way that she does with most men. After we’ve eaten, we wash up, and Mads heads off.
I wake late the next morning, fix myself a coffee and take it back to bed, along with my laptop. I fire it up, open the browser and navigate to LinkedIn. Unlike my phone, this hasn’t remembered the full address of Ed’s profile page, so it takes a little longer to find him. When I do, I spend a while just gazing at him before getting on with the next step. I enter Watson & Fletcher into the search box and click the link for the company.
It’s a very slick, professional website. I learn that, as well as divorce, they handle pre- and post-nuptial agreements and a variety of family law issues, such as relocation of children when one partner wishes to move abroad. It all sounds fairly depressing to me. I don’t know how I’d feel about signing a prenup. I think I’d feel pissed off that I wasn’t completely trusted. But then, if the shoe was on the other foot and I was some kind of millionaire, would I want to protect myself from a husband potentially grabbing half of it after shagging his secretary? If you love and trust someone enough to marry them, surely you have to take some risks, don’t you? I guess the kind of people that Ed’s firm looks after have more than just the odd million though, so maybe they all think it’s completely normal.
I click around the site, looking to see if there are any pictures of Ed, or even an email address. After twenty minutes, I admit defeat. The only pictures are of the two founders. John Watson is a big guy, with dark hair that I’m sure comes out of a bottle, and Mark Fletcher is thin and wiry, with short grey hair. I would imagine they’re both in their sixties. The contact page just lists the office address, phone number and a generic email. I note down the phone number. I’ll call in the week.
After I’ve got dressed, I load the footage from the GoPro onto my laptop and watch it. It’s come out really well. It takes me a while to fathom out the movie-maker software but, after a few hours, I manage to stitch together some footage of me windsurfing and water-skiing, add some music underneath, and upload it to Facebook. Within moments I’ve got likes from some of my school friends. Paula comments, ‘Wow, look at you!’ and Sam writes, ‘If I wasn’t in love with Louise, I’d be in love with you!’ to which I reply, ‘Sorry, babe, but you’re not my type!’
After lunch, I put the card from the waterproof camera into the laptop and browse through the pictures to decide which ones to print. There are a few of the hotel, which I delete, a couple of Mum, Dad and me on our first night, which they’ll like, and then loads of Ed. There’s Ed water-skiing – definitely going to print one of those – Ed on a sunlounger, Ed with his kayak, and a few of him and the dinner he laid on for me. There are the pictures from our jeep tour, a couple of nice ones of Ed trying different fruit and a selfie of the two of us at Shirley Heights. I highlight a few of those for printing too. Finally, there are the pictures from the boat tour. As I suspected I did get quite a few pictures of empty sea, but there are a couple with some blurry fish in them, and one that I’m quite pleased with.
Once I’ve decided which photos to print and deleted the others off the card, I head out to Boots. A while later I return with the prints and a selection of frames. I spend the remainder of the afternoon happily framing them and putting them around the flat.
* * *
The difficulty of having Ed’s work number is that I can only really call during office hours, when I’m also busy, so I don’t get the opportunity to call him until Wednesday afternoon. I feel nervous as I dial.
‘Watson and Fletcher. How may I direct your call?’ The voice is female with a slight Eastern European accent.
‘Can I speak with Ed Wells, please?’ I ask.
‘Putting you through.’
My heart is thumping. I’m about to speak to him. Will he be pleased to hear from me?
‘Good afternoon, Ed Wells’ office. How may I help you?’ It’s not Ed, the voice is female. The receptionist must have put me through to the wrong extension.
‘I’m sorry. I was hoping to speak to Ed Wells,’ I tell her.
‘Mr Wells is busy at the moment.’ I notice her emphasise the ‘Mr’ as if to scold me for my familiarity. I decide that, whoever she is, I don’t like her.
‘I’m Alice, his PA,’ she continues. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’ Of course, I’d completely forgotten about the PA.
‘I wonder if you would mind taking a message,’ I say. ‘My name is Charley, and I’m a friend of his. We met on holiday in Antigua, and he gave me his phone number, but I had an accident with my phone and—’
