'A funny and sweet summer read.' Heat 'The new Marian Keyes' Company In life - and love - be careful what you wish for . . . After her experiences with ex-boyfriend Rob the Slob, Ella Holt has abandoned hope of ever finding the right man. So when she answers 50 questions on her perfect man in a glossy magazine, she has no idea that her responses will be used by a new state-of-the-art dating agency to find her perfect match. Naturally, Ella scoffs at the very notion of a 'perfect man', until the man from the Perfect Agency, James Master, arrives on her doorstep. Not only is he gorgeous, but spontaneous trips to Paris, declarations of love and gourmet sex all become part of her daily routine. However, as 'romance fatigue' sets in, Ella's suspicions about the consequences of her answers begin to mount. And when Rob starts to change his slobbish ways to win her back, she remembers that she asked for a man who will do anything to keep her . . . and let no one stand in his way. A smart, funny love story about why getting what you want isn't always a happy ending
Release date:
March 6, 2014
Publisher:
Piatkus
Print pages:
343
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I can hear noise in the background. He’s watching football. ‘Are you OK?’ I ask him, knowing that his head normally has to
be on fire before he gets off the sofa if sport’s on the telly.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I mean, er, no.’
‘Oh?’ I say.
‘I’ve just been thinking. About, you know, us. About why you left.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘And I reckon I could … you know … like, change.’
‘Right,’ I say, as if I’d just been told they’d found a spotless leopard.
‘No, I could … I really could. I could start being more considerate. I could buy you flowers and … things.’
‘I never wanted you to buy me flowers.’
‘I could maybe start alternating Fridays. You know, only go to the pub every other Friday.’
‘And what about Wednesdays and Saturdays and Sundays?’
Thoughtful pause. ‘Well, I was kind of thinking maybe one step at a time.’
‘Rob, you don’t have to change. You just need to find someone who loves you for who you are. We … didn’t fit, that’s all.’
His breath crackles through the receiver. ‘It’s just, sometimes, I miss having you around.’
My heart tugs, for a moment, then I remember who I am talking to and picture him sitting amid his usual daytime apocalypse
of lad mags and dirty socks. ‘You mean you’ve got no one to do your washing,’ I correct him.
‘No. Course not. That’s not it at all …’ His voice starts to sound distracted and I can hear the faint roar of the football
crowd in the background. Then Rob starts to shout: ‘COME ON ENGLAND! COME ON ENGLAND! YES! YES! GO ON ROONEY … SHOOT … YEEEEEEEEEES!!!
GET IN!’
He’s shouting so loud I have to place the phone about a metre away from my ear.
‘Er, I’ll have to call you back,’ he says eventually. ‘It’s going to go to penalties.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Of course. Penalties. That’s far more important than trying to sort your life –’
The dial-tone hums its indifference.
Of course, Rob the Slob hasn’t always been Rob the Slob.
Only two months ago he was Rob Davis, recruitment consultant and potential husband material. Since I broke up with him I just
have to keep on calling him Rob the Slob in case I accidentally suffer from relationship amnesia and forget exactly why I left him in the first place.
So why did I leave him?
Well, there are different reasons, official and unofficial.
Official reasons:
1) He forgot my birthday.
2) He wouldn’t cancel one Friday night in the pub for a quiet night in.
3) He made me play Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation for three hours on Valentine’s night.
4) He taped Match of the Day over my cherished fifteen-year-old copy of Pretty in Pink.
5) He forgot my birthday. (Have I already said that?)
6) On Saturday 15 March at 1.30 pm he was in the Cart and Horse with his mates having totally forgotten he was supposed to be
sitting in Angelo’s Italian restaurant with me and my mum and dad. Even though I’d already met his dad about 100 times.
Unofficial reasons:
1) His secret wanking under the duvet when he thought I was asleep.
2) His sex face. (Like a constipated gorilla, only uglier.)
3) His not-getting-any-sex face. (Like an endangered gorilla about to be shot in the head.)
4) His nose-picking.
5) His crotch scratching.
6) His idea of a holiday. Which normally involves 20 days on a coach because he is too scared to fly in a plane.
7) His log files. (I checked on his computer. All porn.)
8) His hygiene problem. Which turned into my hygiene problem when he would give an optimistic nod towards his groin during foreplay.
9) His hatred of most pop stars, most film stars, most writers and most people in general who make him feel bad for being a lazy
drunken slob who spends his life playing computer games and eating Pringles and dreaming of owning his own business but never
actually doing anything about it.
10) He. Forgot. My. Birthday.
So yeah, Rob was a real catch. One in a million. The kind of man who makes you feel like the only girl in the room, just so
long as you’ve got a bag of Doritos and a four pack of Stella Artois in your hands.
And, as a result of his many crimes against romance, I dumped him.
It was harsh, I admit, but it had become the only option. I was not ready to believe that a lifetime with a sack of potatoes
thinly disguised as a human being was the future intended for me. I always hoped he was going to one day turn into his dad
(the kindest and warmest former taxi driver you could ever hope to meet). Maybe I’d watched one too many Gillette ads, but
I was convinced Rob was not the best a man can get. My perfect partner was still out there, waiting to be found.
And two months on, I still believe the ideal man is out there. I have the same faith in him that I once held in Father Christmas, my first Mr Perfect.
But I don’t know if that faith can last one more night of disappointment. If tonight doesn’t work out, I am worried that I
will wake up tomorrow morning with the sinking feeling you get when you discover the horrible gap between reality and your
imagination.
Like when I was seven years old and I pulled Santa’s elastic beard slightly too hard, only to discover it was my sherry-sozzled
Uncle Eric in a cheap red suit with a pillow strapped to his belly.
This is all Maddie’s stupid idea.
‘Twenty-five men in one night,’ she said. ‘The biggest speed dating event in London.’
She said it would do me good. Help me get over Rob the Slob. And I said I’d go with her, like an idiot, even though I’ve always
hated the idea of these sort of things. Sitting there, with your name badge on behind a table, preened like a showdog, having
a stream of three-minute dates.
It always made me think of this place I went to once in Soho. This sushi bar where the food moves by you on a conveyor belt
and by the time you’ve seen something that looks tasty it’s passed you, and you’re nearly falling off your chair trying to
get it. Then by the time it’s come back round it’s disappeared and you see it being gobbled by some woman with ninja reflexes
on the other side of the room.
I’m sitting here, smiling and sticking my chest out, feeling pretty stupid. And there’s Maddie on the next table rubbing her
hands, sucking on her Tequila Mockingbird and bouncing in her chair as if she’s a toddler at a birthday party, waiting to play pass the parcel.
A bell goes Ding! and the men start to make their way over.
Seconds out, round one.
1. Steve
Oh, this might be promising. He’s half-decent looking. Well, if you cancel out the cheap suit and ignore the fact his forehead
is equivalent to the land-mass of Estonia.
‘Hello,’ I say.
‘Hello,’ he says. ‘I’m Steve.’
‘Hello,’ I say again, like I’m some Lionel Richie tribute act.
‘So,’ he says, as if it’s an interview or something. ‘Tell me a bit about yourself.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Well, I’m Ella, as you can see from my badge. Ella Holt. And I’m single, obviously, and I live with my best
friend, Maddie, Maddie Hatfield, who’s on the next table and is a complete nutcase but is also the kindest and most wonderful
person in the world according to the International Best Person Index. Ha!’ Oh God, I must be nervous, I’m trying to be funny.
‘We’re teachers. At a secondary school, Thistlemead Comp. Which isn’t as horrible as people say, really, if you ignore the
smell … and the teachers. And most of the pupils. And the graffiti on the front gate which says YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE SEVENTH CIRCLE OF HELL, which was actually written by the IT teacher five days before his nervous breakdown. I teach English. Shakespeare and stuff.
I’ve only been doing it two years so I’m still finding my feet.’
There’s an awkward silence. So I look under the table and point to my feet and say ‘Oh there they are’ and try to ignore the fact
that I’ve just made the worst joke in the history of comedy.
I look at his face, fishing for a smile. Or anything. But there’s not so much as a flicker.
‘Anyway,’ I say. ‘Your turn.’
‘Well, I work in computing. I’m a systems analyst at Microtech which works for various business clients to ensure their security
and back-end systems are all fully functioning. This basically means we look at their firewalls, their intranets and their
extranets and …
Zzzzzzzzzz.
He’s still talking, but I have no idea what the words droning out of his mouth actually mean. I just nod and smile and pray
for the bell to ring.
Even as he sits across the table from me I’m starting to forget what he looks like. I tell you, if ever Einstein needed to
help his fellow physicists appreciate that time is a relative concept he should have arranged an evening of speed-dating and
invited Steve.
Three minutes in his company starts to feel like three hours. I’ve had entire relationships that have felt shorter.
Ding!
Ah, the bell.
I smile and try not to look too relieved as he makes way for the next Romantic Possibility. The smile quickly evaporates as
the seat is filled by a pipe-cleaner with a crew cut and army camouflage and eyes so close together he very nearly qualifies as a Cyclops.
2. Brendan.
‘Hello Brendan,’ I say, reading his name badge.
‘Hello Ella,’ he says, reading mine and checking out my cleavage at the same time.
‘So what do you do?’
‘Army,’ he says. Then, after a brief and inconsequential conversation, he decides to let me in on a secret. ‘I can kill someone
with these two fingers.’ He moves his thumb and index finger towards my neck.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That’s, erm, really useful.’
‘Hold down on the pressure points. Five seconds later, heart stops completely. Dead.’
‘Right.’ I look over at Maddie who’s on the next table and who has just suffered the Brendan experience three minutes before
me. She winks and places her thumb and index finger on her throat, miming a Brendan-induced suicide. I laugh out loud.
‘What’s so funny?’ Brendan asks.
‘Nothing,’ I say, keeping a careful eye on his hands. ‘Nothing at all. I’m a bit nervous, that’s all. This is the first time
I’ve done this. Are you nervous?’
He laughs nervously. ‘Nervous? When you’ve had an AK-47 pointed at your skull, the sight of twenty-five women desperate for
a shag is nothing.’
‘Hey! Who said anything about! –’
Ding!
3. Philip.
Philip is a mild-mannered guywearing a faded X-Files T-shirt who works in Blockbuster. He seems half-normal until he tries to convince
me that the world is run by a global elite who are genetically descended from an extraterrestrial race of reptiles that arrived
on earth centuries ago in the form of humans and who practice rituals such as blood-drinking and child sacrifice.
Ding!
4. Nicholas.
Nicholas is smoking a roll-up cigarette and has long curly hair that covers three quarters of his face. Judging by the quarter
that remains visible, this is probably a good thing.
‘Hello Nicholas.’
A thirty second silence. Then: ‘What you into?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Music. What’s your scene?’
‘Oh, um –’
‘I have to know what music a girl is into before I make the effort man. You know, just in case, she turns out to be, like,
into fucking Shitney Spears or something.’
‘Oh, right. Well, I really like the new Alicia Keys album,’ I say, deciding it might be best not to tell him that my all-time
favourite records include the Dirty Dancing soundtrack and Kylie’s greatest hits.
‘Corporate soul, man. It’s fake music.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘So what music do you like then?’
‘Joy Division, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Echo and the Bunnymen. The good stuff. Before all this corporate shit. You know,
all this commercial music-by-numbers, this bling-bling shiny happy hip-hop consumer crap.’
‘You feel quite strongly, then.’
The voice continues, somewhere behind the smoke and hair: ‘Yeah, music died with Kurt, man,’ he says, tugging out his Nirvana
T–shirt. ‘You gotta fight the power and escape all this false noise. It’s like no one cares any more, no one gives a shit
about the way the commercial mainstream has taken over everything, it’s like no escape.’
‘Maybe sometimes life is depressing enough without having to be reminded of it all the time,’ I tell him, to my own surprise.
‘I like shiny and happy stuff because it makes you feel life can give you what you want, even when you know it can’t really.’
He looks at me in a kind of stoned anger.
The anger is contagious. I am about to get out of my chair and whack the patronising tosser around the face, when I am saved
by the bell.
Ding!
As the night ‘progresses’ twenty-five Romantic Possibilities starts to feel like twenty-five reasons to switch my sexual orientation.
There is Rav, the investment banker, who spends the whole time telling me how rich he is, bombarding me with six-figure sums
as if I am something on auction. There is Dave, who tries to sell me a wrap of cocaine. There is Brian, the farmer, who is
looking for a housewife. Peter, the car mechanic, who already has a housewife and is looking for a bit on the side. After
Peter, there is Eugene, who is, well, called Eugene.
And after that, the names become a blur. There is the guy with the eye-patch. And the one with breath so bad I spend the whole
three minutes with my nose in a wine glass, scuba-diving in Chardonnay. And then there’s the clinically depressed dwarf, who
hasn’t had a job since the Snow White pantomime three Christmases ago.
There’s the stripper, who asks if I want to see his pierced willy. (Of course, Maddie had already accepted the offer and had
laughed herself under the table.)
Oh, and there’s the total dickhead who can’t keep his eyes off the airbag-breasted blonde in the corner of the room.
There is the bloke with the stutter who gets halfway through his first sentence by the time the bell goes, the guy with the
video camera who wants me to say something dirty, the exceptionally ugly man, the naturist, the hypochondriac, the hunchback,
the fascist, the sexist, the one who wanted a threesome with me and Maddie (Maddie had agreed on my behalf) and the lanky
PhD student who describes speed dating as ‘the post-modern equivalent of the high society balls found in Jane Austen’s era’
before sneezing snot all over the table.
And last and definitely least, there is number twenty-five.
I try and read his name badge, but am far too drunk.
He looks at me for a very long time.
‘How much you cost?’ he asks me, eventually, with an accent I can’t quite place.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘For fucky-fuck. How much? Fucky-fuck and maybe suck my cock too? How much you say?’
‘Erm, I think you are in the wrong place.’
‘I sorry. No understand.’
‘This is not a brothel. This is speed dating.’
‘You nice titties. How much for feel?’
I’m furious. ‘My body is not on sale,’ realising too late that the music has cut out.
‘Why you here? Why you sit behind table selling yourself to the men? Why you do that if no on sale.’
‘I’m here to meet men I might have something in common with. And maybe form a friendship or a romance.’
‘Men no want romance. Men want fucky-fuck. How much?’
Ding!
I sit in the back of the cab travelling back to Tooting and stare out of the window while Maddie gropes around with Boring
Steve the systems analyst, whom she has decided to pull for no other reason than he was the last man she spoke to and she
fancies a shag.
If the fucky-fuck man had been her number twenty-five she’d probably be groping around with him right now, and making a bit
of profit while she was at it.
I’ve let her down. She probably wanted me to have done the same, pulled anything I could for the sake of a quick cuddle and
a meaningless shag. And tomorrow she will no doubt go on about my high standards.
But, I don’t think my standards are too high. I honestly don’t. Hey, any girl who can spend a year dating Rob the Slob can
not be accused of standards in excess of the legal limit.
OK, so my standards aren’t as, erm, democratic as Maddie’s. Hell, you couldn’t even limbo under her standards. But then, Maddie doesn’t want a relationship, or at least, not
one that lasts more than one night.
I keep staring, out of the window, out at a world of men. Vomiting in doorways, crawling on curbs, starting fights. And I
wonder, foolishly, if among that chaos of masculinity, there could really be a Romeo or a Heathcliffe or a Mr Darcy.
Because that’s the trouble. No matter how much reality tells you otherwise, romance is a hard dream to squash. And no matter
how much I know the perfect man does not and cannot exist, he stays there, in my mind, as a future possibility.
When we get home, I follow them into the house and observe the bizarre sight they make. Maddie, dressed like a technicolour
whirlwind, is only five foot. Steve, dressed like a systems analyst, is as high as a lamp-post. Not that Maddie will be bothered.
Her attitude to men is the same as other people’s attitude towards a healthy diet. The more variety, the better. One night
she’ll have a breadstick, the next she’ll have a pickled gherkin.
‘Sssh,’ I say, when they clatter through the door and fall over the bike propped up in the hallway. ‘Pip’s asleep.’
‘Oh yes,’ says Maddie, with a mischievous giggle. ‘Serious faces.’
I sigh, and leave her and Boring Steve to whatever drunken half-delights lie beyond Maddie’s bedroom door.
Pip, my other flatmate, is a total psycho.
Look at her.
It’s Thursday morning. It’s a quarter to seven. And she’s in the middle of our dingy living room punching and side-kicking
to her favourite workout DVD, Tae Bo Extreme: Get Ripped.
‘Jab, jab, uppercut, uppercut,’ she pants. ‘Jab, jab, uppercut, uppercut…’
She does this every morning, before having her breakfast (half a pink grapefruit) and preparing her packed lunch (carrot salad,
no dressing).
‘Morning,’ I say.
‘Jab, jab, morning, uppercut …’
I love her workout face. It’s so funny. So intense and angry with that little vertical crease in her forehead.
In fact, it’s only a slightly exaggerated version of her normal face. The face indicative of moderate psychopathic tendencies
that she wears when she’s tidying or preparing her geography lessons or checking the calorie content on one of Maddie’s many
chocolate indulgences or looking at the scales or magazines or the mirror or anything at all in fact.
Of course, she’s not a real psycho. To the best of my knowledge there are no bodies she has hidden under the floorboards after
delivering a fatal Tae Bo uppercut to the chin. It’s just that she’s pretty intense. It’s as though life’s this big equation
she could solve if only she took a little bit more control over it. And she’s been like this ever since she was dumped by
a media sales dickhead called Greg who said she had a flabby arse. Which she totally hasn’t. ‘Jab, jab, hook, side kick … mother … fucker …’
I leave her to it and go and check the post.
The electric bill.
A menu from a new Pizza takeaway.
And a yellow envelope addressed to me, in type.
There’s a logo on it, next to the stamp. A weird sort of upside down triangle, with the word PERFECT underneath it. I look closer and see that the upside down triangle is meant to be a heart.
Curiouser and curiouser …
Inside, there is a small white card that looks like a wedding invitation, with the heart logo embossed onto it.
Then I look at the words and find myself reading aloud to absorb their meaning.
Ella Holt,
Congratulations.
You have w. . .
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