The Cupid Effect

  She didn’t even stop, she spun on her heels in another smooth 180-degree turn and stalked away again.

  ‘That’s going to be a right shiner,’ I said to Mel, who was holding his cold beer bottle against his cheek.

  He took the bottle away and nearly pulled a sarcastic smile, hindered by the pain in his face. ‘Thanks, Ceri, you’re a great help. I always like it when people point out the bloody obvious.’

  I tried not to laugh. ‘How long have you known Claudine, again?’

  ‘Nearly eleven years.’

  ‘And even though you know her so well, you didn’t think calling her a slut would end up with her smacking you one?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking, that’s the point. I wanted to hurt her; get the last word in.’

  ‘Well you did that. “Ow!” wasn’t it?’

  Mel glowered at me. I probably shouldn’t be taking the piss. I’d no doubt added to Claudine’s foul mood by vetoing her plans to unburden her conscience.

  ‘Why were you two rowing anyway? You were, are, mates,’ I said, feeling a tad responsible. What I’d said had been in Kevin and Claudine’s best interests. And Mel’s. He would’ve been in for a sound beating if Claudine had blabbed. (Never understood what was sound about a beating. Surely it should be unsound? That was the whole point.)

  Mel returned his bottle to his face, right after he rolled his eyes. ‘Who knows. I don’t.’

  ‘So you spent an hour in my office listening to Claudine shouting, and said nothing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I planted my tongue in my cheek and raised an eyebrow at him.

  ‘Well, a little. No. She shouted, I shouted, we both shouted.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Ever since that weekend, you know the lost weekend, she’s been off with me and, I suppose, I’ve been off with her.’

  Don’t ask why, don’t ask why. Don’t get any more involved. Not your problem. NOT YOUR PROBLEM. ‘Why?’

  ‘You know Ceri, I’m really pissed off. I mean, it’s all right for her, she’s got someone, she can just bugger off for the weekend and be happy with him and I’m alone.’ Mel slammed his bottle onto the table. ‘It’s not fair. I care so much for her and I know she loves me. You don’t make love to someone like she did if you don’t love them. (At that moment I couldn’t believe Mel was thirty. You don’t make love to someone like she did if you don’t love them, indeed. Where did he get that sort of idea from? Reading too many love stories, and watching too many Hollywood movies, I’ll bet. I was more than a little partial to them, myself. But even I didn’t believe what he’d just said.) So why is she still with him? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I sighed. Except I do know, and you, buddy, don’t want to hear it.

  Mel sighed slightly, looked away across the bar. I looked him over again. The man who Jake and Ed used to try to set me up with. He was good-looking. Fresh-faced but experienced. Long lashes around hazel eyes, sexily-curly hair, distinguished but friendly features.

  Mel caught me checking him out and his eyes held mine. Lust shivered through me. Things were bad – I was starting to have impure thoughts about Mel.

  ‘You’re actually quite vaguely attractive, aren’t you?’ Mel said.

  Talk about your damning with faint praise. ‘Thanks Mel, that’s probably one of the most insulting things anyone’s ever said to me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean owt by it, I only just noticed. You’re all right looking. And I had this sudden urge to kiss you. I was thinking about Claudine and I get that urge every time I think about her.’

  I leapt on that like a woman who hadn’t eaten in days offered a slice of hot buttered toast. It reminded me of what Craig had said about me subliminally advertising sex and inciting him to have sex with his ex-girlfriend. ‘Really? You think about Claudine and you want to kiss any woman around? So it’s not just me?’

  Mel thought about my question, even though I wasn’t sure he understood it.

  ‘It has been happening a lot lately, I think about Claudine, I get the urge to kiss someone. But I can’t say it happened before you arrived on the scene.’ Mel sipped his beer, returned it to his face. ‘In fact, I can categorically say, a lot of things have changed since you got here. Things between me and Clau were fine until that day you asked us if we were going out together. Our friendship deteriorated right after that.’

  Oh.

  Mel saw my face fall. ‘It’s all right. To be honest, I feel better now it’s come to a head – smack in the face notwithstanding. Maybe now she’ll realise what this is doing to us and leave that idiot.’ Mel talked on, explaining why he was glad I’d ruined his life.

  chapter twenty-six

  Knock Out

  ‘Ceri, we’ve been waiting for you,’ Jake said, practically greeting me on the front door step.

  ‘We? Who? Why?’ Suddenly I had visions of an intervention, where all your friends and family wait for you – usually in your living room – to tell you in no uncertain terms that your addiction is destroying you and they love you too much to stand by and watch you do that.

  Obviously Jess had blabbed that I watched too much telly. Well, too much Angel. I’d slipped from being a recreational user to a full-blown, gotta have it everyday, twice-a-day addict.

  ‘Ed and Robyn are here.’ Jake looked rattled. His face was pale, his features were set to permanent frown and even his hair looked shaken. Why? Had he walked in on them at it and been permanently scarred by how truly disgusting sex could be?

  I couldn’t take any more drama though. Whatever it was, I couldn’t handle it. It’d been less than two hours since Mel and Claudine’s blow-up, I was still fragile. It’d jolted me to my very core, especially to know that Mel – and probably Claudine – thought I was the cause of that. I incited Craig to sex; I motivated Claudine to violence and I made men fancy Jess. I didn’t want any more drama unless it was on the television.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I whispered anxiously.

  Jake simply gave me a hard stare, then led the way into the living room.

  Ed beamed at me as I approached, although how he managed to get more smile behind that grin was a mystery. Robyn, she of the girly, haughty, “I didn’t get a role in Coronation Street but I’m not bitter” visage was beaming too. I wasn’t sure she knew how to smile.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, clocking how close they sat, their fingers entwined.

  ‘Hi, Ceri,’ they both said. They’d become Stepford Couple. In the space of, what, three-and-a-bit weeks. This wasn’t what I’d been expecting when I’d seen Jake’s face. I’d expected Robyn to be holding a gun to Ed’s head or something.

  ‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ Ed said.

  ‘So Jake said,’ I replied.

  ‘Before you say anything else, babe, I just want to say thank you to Ceri.’ This was, rather scarily, from Robyn.

  ‘For?’ I replied.

  She gave Ed a loving look, the kind of sweet look that diabetics would need an insulin overdose to get under control. ‘For making Ed ask me out.’

  ‘I didn’t make him do anything,’ I snapped. I didn’t need this bullshit on top of everything else.

  ‘Yes you did,’ Ed said. ‘You were the only person who gave me any advice worth listening to. Twice.’

  ‘He’s perfect. Thank you.’ Robyn again.

  ‘Hmmm,’ I mumbled. Would anyone understand if I started upending furniture and screaming, ‘IT’S NOTHING TO DO WITH ME! YOU ALL FUCK UP YOUR LIVES ON YOUR OWN! STOP BLAMING ME FOR EVERYTHING!’ I glanced at their faces, no they probably wouldn’t understand at all.

  ‘Anyway, what we wanted to tell the two of you is, we’re moving in together,’ Ed said.

  My heart double-flipped. Oh. My. God. It’d been under four weeks. I tried to keep an impassive face, but now I could see why Jake was so shaken.

  ‘When?’ I managed from my shocked mouth. I really did think I was unshockable.

  ‘As soon as possible. Robyn would ideally move in here cos it’
s bigger than the place she shares, but if Jake says no, we’ll move in to her place.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And, this bit we haven’t told anyone, not even Jake, but, I’m going to give up college, get a job and next year we’re going to get married.’

  ‘Give up college?’ Jake managed.

  I did not speak. I was lying spread-eagle on the carpet, KO’d by the news.

  ‘This is all your fault,’ Jake said to me in the kitchen.

  Ed and Robyn had skipped off upstairs to their little love nest and Jake had asked me into the kitchen for a quick chat. He might as well have ripped off his shirt and offered me an outside for the friendliness he’d put into the request for a talk in the kitchen.

  He’d practically dragged me to beside the back door, shoved me roughly against the sink worktop, and then stood over me like he was going to resurrect the bruise that had just started to fade on my face with his fist. Jake was really quite big and scary when it came down to it.

  ‘How? How is this my fault?’ I said.

  ‘You made him ask out that gold-digging hussy. And now look.’

  ‘Gold-digging?’

  ‘Ed’s minted.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s a millionaire’s son. She’s no doubt found that out and now he’s going to give up college.’

  ‘Millionaire’s son? Don’t talk soft. If he’s minted, why does he live here?’

  ‘He doesn’t have to. Ed could buy this whole street of houses if he wanted. But he doesn’t want, he just wants a normal life. And he’s not going to get that if he gives up college.’

  I ran my hand through my hair. What the hell is going on? Ed, a millionaire’s son. Ed and Robyn moving in together. Claudine punching Mel. Had the world gone mad?

  ‘Ed’s life was going fine until you encouraged him to ask her out,’ Jake said.

  ‘He wanted to,’ I said lamely. ‘I couldn’t have made him if he didn’t want to. I mean, I didn’t hold a gun to his head.’

  ‘Ed looks up to you. You’ve got this, presence . . . he said that after that first day you moved in here. When he talks to you, he feels like anything’s possible, even if it’s the most stupid thing on earth. I’ve been telling him to either ask that, that,’ Jake lowered his voice, ‘woman (I never knew anyone could get that much venom into a two-syllable word) out or forget her. All his friends have been telling him that for ages. One word from you, and he’s cut his hair, wearing smart clothes and asking her out.’

  ‘I didn’t tell him to cut his hair,’ I said, lamely.

  ‘Whatever. Just sort it out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sort it out. Stop him from doing this.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just sort it out. Stop him. It’s your fault he’s about to chuck his life away, so it’s down to you to sort it out.’

  I just looked at Jake.

  He jabbed his finger viciously at me. ‘I mean it. Sort it out Ceri. If Ed ruins his life because of this, I’ll never forgive you. And I doubt Ed will either.’

  Jake went slamming out of the house and there was me thinking he’d be devastated if I left. ‘I was the only one who didn’t tell you to get over The Git,’ I almost called after him. ‘I listened, I let you own your feelings.’

  His trail of bad vibes still hadn’t dispersed when Ed came trotting down the stairs minutes later. And I hadn’t moved from my semi-cowering stance by the back door. Three shocks in less than three hours was more than I could take.

  ‘Has Jake gone out?’ Ed asked, heading for the kettle.

  I nodded. Ed bounced as he walked, a jolly little spring to his step. He was happy. Any idiot could look at him, listen to him and know that. Ed was in the happiness zone. It might not last, but was that any reason for me to do as I was told, nay, ordered and tell him he was moving too fast.

  ‘We’re going to get a takeaway, want some?’ Ed asked as he plugged the kettle back in. ‘Pizza. I can tell Robyn wants a Chinese but she said to get pizza cos you and Jake might want some. And if we get garlic bread and stuff it’ll make a right old feast.’

  What are you doing Ed? And is it anything to do with me? Have you too become a victim of whatever it is I’m supposed to do to people? Or is it a coincidence?

  ‘So, do you?’

  ‘Um, um, no. I’m not that hungry.’

  ‘Oh come on, you know you want it,’ Ed coaxed. ‘What’s that expression you use, I’m sure you could choke some down.’

  ‘Go on then, you’ve twisted my arm. I never could say no to a good feeding.’

  Ed grinned. Went to leave, stopped, came back. Kissed my cheek. I put my hand to my cheek, his kiss had been as light as a feather. ‘I wouldn’t be feeling like this if it wasn’t for you, thank you.’ Then he bounded out of the room.

  chapter twenty-seven

  The Question

  I have no life.

  It’s official. I have no life, I am merely living vicariously through other people.

  Take, for example, Mel and Claudine’s drama. They were actively avoiding each other. Even in the Senior Common Room, when one entered, the other one left. They’d got an official face on it, of course. A ‘hi’ face that told the world that they’re both so busy they haven’t got time for each other. While everyone we worked with believed that, I knew the real story.

  I, for example, happened to know that they’d once been more than friends. And I also knew that the lamppost Mel walked into that caused his bruise happened to be five foot eight, with black hair and a surprisingly strong right-hook for her slender frame. She was also very angry at the time. (I noticed no one sat him down and asked him if he was being abused. They all believed his heinous lie without a second thought.)

  The most unsettling thing about the Mel and Claudine story was, though, I didn’t just know their story. I was their story. I was part of their drama and I experienced their emotions. What they felt, I felt. It was my seventh sense magnified.

  I was Mel, in love with someone who wouldn’t leave her partner for me. Clinging to the hope that one day she’d wake up and see sense. I was Claudine, convinced that I could be in love with two men at once and almost breaking my heart to try to reconcile that. I was both people, knowing how I felt, suspecting how the other felt, not really knowing what I should do.

  But the seventh sense didn’t end there. Not by a long shot.

  I was also Ed. Rushing into something because she really was The One. I had no fear, no doubt, no indecision. All I knew was, when I left her place to return to mine, I felt as though I’d left my arm behind and needed to go back and collect it. And, within seconds of shutting my front door, she was calling me, begging me to come back because there was an Ed-shaped hole in her life. I’d never known anything so easy, passionate, comforting, so right.

  I was Gwen. Suddenly dissatisfied with everything. It wasn’t just the demon year group any more. Every year group wound me up. Every lecture rankled me. I smoked more and more, trying to push down this feeling of powerlessness; this knowledge that I’d chosen this path and I was going to be doing this hideous thing called lecturing for the rest of my days.

  I was Jake, scowling now about what Ed was doing with his life. Scared that he was doing the wrong thing. Worried my best mate was about to do something monumentally stupid, something he couldn’t go back on. And under it, really scowling about the twat who was meant to be my friend but used me for sex then treated me like dirt when I told him how I felt. I was also jealous. How come Ed got it right and I got it so wrong? Robyn was a stuck-up tart, The Git was meant to be my friend, but Ed was happy, I’d been used.

  I was Craig, in desperate need of a reality check on my feelings about the ex I can’t stop sleeping with. She winds me up, she’s a bit of a psycho, but nowadays she’s the one person I want to spend all my time with. I can’t possibly love her, could I?

  And then, of course, there were the students. Constantly trailing to the door of my shared office
, pouring their hearts out. Not that I was their tutor. Just, it seemed, available. Did I have such an eventful life as a student? I’d often wonder as another student poured out a plot more complicated than anything I saw on Sunset Beach. There was something very disconcerting and disturbing about standing in front of a group of people and knowing who’d shagged who, who’d screwed over who, who really hated who. The students spent so much time pouring their hearts out in my office that whenever there was a knock on the door these days Sally picked up her papers and cup and left because she knew the people wouldn’t be visiting her.

  My brain, my heart, my time were crammed with people’s passions, loves, hopes, hates, sorrows, emotions. I had to keep track, remember who had told me what, who hadn’t told me what. What was told only after swearing me to secrecy, what I was supposed to pass on, but discreetly.

  I wasn’t simply listening to problems and stories and lives, I was living them. At least, that’s how it felt. I felt it all. Not empathy. Actual feelings. The actual emotions. I ached when they ached; I vacillated when they vacillated; I loved when they loved. I’d had this before, only not as consistently like now.

  Before, like with Ed, like with Trudy, like with Mel, like with the man who fancied Jess, it was periodic, the occasional sensation. Now, it’d got worse. Intensified, concentrated. Never-ending. When someone cried, I genuinely experienced those ripples of distress and teetered on the brink of tears myself. If someone told me of their joy, I felt my heart leap and do an excited jig. Like, I suppose, some men get sympathetic labour pains, I got sympathetic life experiences.

  I felt all their joys, all their fears, all their upsets, as though I was doing the living myself.

  And it was sucking the real life out of me. Even the unmitigated highs and joys of other people’s happiness didn’t make up for it. It wasn’t my happiness. I may as well have described my perfect birthday present, down to the Bagpuss wrapping paper, then watch someone else unwrap it without so much as a glance at the paper, then smile, say it’s lovely, then put it aside and never pick it up again. You were happy they had it, but you, sure as eggs is eggs and chocolate is chocolate, wanted it yourself. It was meant for you. Built for you. You deserved it, just as much as the person who had it. You’d appreciate it more, too.