alarmingly. ‘It’s karma!’
‘It is?’
‘It’s meant to be, me having this mag and you desperately needing a man. Fate!’
‘I wouldn’t say desperately.’ No woman in this century should ever admit to desperately needing a man, should they?
‘Whatever. Shit, Sam, this is perfect.’
‘I’m not sure everybody is doing it.’ Escort sounds seedy. ‘Especially not in the Surrey suburbs.’
‘If they can do it in Hollywood, then why can’t we?’
‘Well, for one I can’t afford it.’
‘How do you know?’ She’s got a point, I haven’t got a clue how much you have to shell out for a fake date.
‘And somebody looking like that won’t be remotely interested in a small town church wedding followed by a nosh up and boogie.’ Okay, I’m being a bit unfair here, dragging Jess down to my level. It’s because I’m panicking. It will be a lovely wedding, in one of the posh hotels. There will be nothing small town about it. But there will also be nothing Hollywood about it.
‘Oh rubbish, I’m sure we could find somebody who’d do it. We should investigate, let’s get…’
Luckily an elderly couple open the door and head straight for my desk. That tends to happen; I handle upmarket cruises and quiet retreats, Sarah gets booze cruises and 18-30 raves.
‘Well?’ She waves the magazine in the air in one hand, her other poised over the keyboard and mouths ‘Google’ at me. ‘Sounds great to me – you’d never have to see him again!’
‘And that could be a godsend,’ chips in the lady, who has sat down and is rummaging in her handbag. She produces her glasses, puts them on and peers at me. ‘I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I’d never had to see my Albert again.’ She pats his knee in apology, and he smiles. ‘Daft bugger has got flat batteries in his hearing aids so I can say what I want. Now, dear, Albert wants to go to Brighton, and I want to go to Lake Garda. What do you suggest?’
I look at the couple, but my mind just isn’t on the perfect holiday that combines the attractions of the south coast of Britain, and the Italian Lakes.
Studs for sale. Huh. Honestly, does she really think I’m so desperate I’d hire a date?
I don’t really believe in all that fate and bad luck stuff. Well, I do think the number seven is quite lucky, and I don’t walk under ladders, and thirteen is a bit of a weird thing, and I don’t step on cracks. Oh, and I do pick a penny up if I see it. And I have been known to follow the odd black cat, and trample over my friends in a bid to catch a bridal bouquet. But in general it’s all a load of guff isn’t it? I wouldn’t say I believe, or let it rule my life in any way whatsoever.
But now I do believe bad luck comes in threes.
I have just got out of bed and picked number three up off my doormat. A thick, cream, embossed, exceedingly posh envelope. I reluctantly slide the thick, cream, equally posh card out of the envelope. I read the words on the front.
Wedding Invitation.
I open the card.
Number one was that save-the-date message, and number two was finding out that not only was Liam seeing the girl he’d ‘met’ while he was still supposed to be seeing me, he would also be taking her to the wedding. And she is huge. As in hugely pregnant. (Number two is a biggie in all senses of the word).
It’s not the fact it’s the actual wedding invite that qualifies it as number three (because I was expecting that) – it’s what I read when I open it.
Jess and Dan aren’t getting married in the local church, with some posh nosh up the road. Oh no. My imaginary partner and I are cordially invited to join the happy couple at Loch Lagwhinnie Country Estate.
I don’t like the look of the word ‘loch’, it sounds ominously Scottish.
I am still clutching the invite as I Google the estate’s name. It is Scottish, as in Scotland Scottish.
It is a remote estate in the wilds of Scotland, miles from civilisation. Well, the website I found doesn’t exactly say ‘wilds’, but that is how I tend to think of Scottish estates. It’s all Queen Victoria and her ghillie Brown, and shaggy ponies. And Braveheart. Hairy men in kilts. Oh my God, kilts.
I turn the invite over and it gets worse. Far worse. The celebrations are to last a week so that we can partake in the many activities on offer. There will be opportunities to shoot, fish, gallop across the estate, walk beside the loch, and sample the local whisky.
A WEEK!
Bloody hell, a whole week. I will need whisky. Not just a sample, gallons of the stuff.
I slide down the wall until I’m sat on the floor, because my wobbly legs don’t give me much choice. Invite of doom in one hand, mobile phone in the other.
An actual week. How can Jess do this to me? My ordeal as a singleton is to last days.
My face will crack if I have to pretend-smile for seven days. My new jeans will split with the amount of alcohol and food I will be forced to consume as a coping mechanism. I will run out of supposedly waterproof mascara and eyeliner, and make-up remover.
She might give birth dramatically.
I’m slightly distracted by the thought of a mini Liam, already in tartan, entering the world whilst a bearded, kilted bagpipe player plays some mournful kind of music, when I realise my phone is vibrating in my hand. Still staring at the invitation, I answer it on auto-pilot without even looking at who’s calling.
‘Darling, it’s me, Mum.’
Bugger. ‘Oh, hi.’ I can’t go. Not for a whole week.
‘Are you okay, Samantha? You sound distracted.’
Distracted is too small a word. ‘Fine, just tired.’ Tired always works well where my mother is concerned.
‘Oh dear, you do work too hard. You need a break. That’s why I’m ringing actually.’ I can hear the excitement start to leak into her voice. ‘Are you still there, Samantha?’
‘Yes, I’m here. Sorry.’ What do you do on a Scottish estate? Falling off horses (not that I’d get on one, given a choice) and marching through the heather in green wellies with a shotgun over my shoulder isn’t exactly going to show Liam what he threw away, is it? I’ve got the type of calves that never look good in wellingtons, even when I’m at my thinnest and fittest. And I wouldn’t know where to start when it comes to shooting, apart from that bit when they yell pull. It will probably be the nearest I get to pulling the whole week.
‘Samantha! Did you hear what I just said?’
Unless I turned it into an Agatha Christie murder mystery
