The Soulmate Agency Read online

  Chapter 10

  Roberta

  As they settled down after the short break it was obvious that there were two to go. The female of the pair turned to the male and asked if she could go next, he willingly acquiesced. Thus before Angela could jiggle her little cloth bag she started speaking. “I’m Roberta, otherwise known as the occupant of the Bluebell suite.”

  The first thing to notice about Roberta was her hair, it was not just auburn, it was bright ginger and fell in dense impenetrable ringlets onto her shoulders. Her clothes came next, a voluminous nut-brown, calf length brown tweed like skirt, a deep courgette-green blouse and wooden oak coloured flip-flop sandals with matt deep red straps. Her face, half hidden behind the hair, was covered in freckles, had a small well formed mouth with deep ruby red thickish lips, a stubby pointed nose with a tiny circular black nose-stud, and thick black almost semi-circular eyebrows that arced over the eyes. To complete the picture her fingernails (small delicate hands) and toenails (thin stylish feet) were immaculately painted cherry red and her left ankle sported an extremely fine silver anklet. However, what grasped you about Roberta was her bearing. Her azure blue eyes peered out from behind the wall of hair as if half-hiding and half wanting to be seen. As her eyes moved it was obvious that she had a lethargic right eye. It always seemed to lag behind the left eye and when she blinked the eyelid took that fraction of a second longer to sweep up and down. Her whole body language, including the way she sat way down in her chair with her shoulders only a few inches above the chair’s arms, despite her obvious height, and her feet resting on a low footstool, spoke of world weariness and melancholy. This was a shame as in beauty she could easily have rivalled Angela, she just lacked the poise. She continued in her soft Kent accent. “You could describe me as a disappointment. My parents, like Riona’s, wanted a son. In fact they’d even been assured that they were having a boy and then I popped out. They wanted a Bob and they got a Bobbie. When I was due to go to school they brought in a home tutor, apparently after a year the woman told my mother that I was as thick as an oak tree and she’d better get used to it. It was another disappointment for them, especially for my mother.”

  She slumped further down into the chair and almost totally hid her face behind the mass of red hair, “From then on it was a succession of schools following a set pattern. I’d spend a couple of years in one and mother would pester the life out of them, was I succeeding here, or excelling there? When they told her I was at best a mediocre student who’d never set the world on fire they’d move me on. The net result of that being that I was always the new girl and never made any long term friends.”

  She sighed a deep sigh of failure, “By the time I was eighteen I’d been to seven different schools, most of them private and most of them with a mixture of International students, and I thought I’d finished with it all, but oh no, they sent me to a finishing school in Switzerland. I wanted to leave school and become a tourist guide in London or Paris, after all I can get by in four languages, but that wasn’t good enough for them and they had a plan. You have no idea of the pressure they put under to go to that bloody school in Switzerland.”

  The sheer bitterness in her voice made most listeners’ wince, but she wasn’t looking at them, she was gazing into the past. “I had no idea what their plan was – after all why should they share it with me, I’m just their oak-tree thick daughter? However, I managed to throw a spanner in the works by having a car accident and before you ask yes I was drunk, absolutely ratted in the first order. They drove me to drink and I drove a friend’s car into a tree and the air-bag didn’t work properly so I hit my face on the steering wheel just as the air-bag inflated. The force of the dual impacts broke my right cheekbone and jawbone, and my right eye popped out of its socket. That’s besides the broken arm and the two broken shin bones. I’m glad to say I was so far gone I didn’t feel a thing, least not then, the real pain came later.”

  She paused for a moment and then continued in a doleful resigned flat soulless voice. “I spent three months in a Swiss hospital, racked up some masterly hospital bills and came out with an eye that’s a bit lethargic, and don’t say you haven’t noticed because everybody notices. From then on I further screwed up their plans because I got depressed, really depressed. Following the accident I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t watch TV without getting headaches and I certainly couldn’t get a job using a computer; so I became depressed and started drinking in earnest. I had my first go at rehab a couple of years later, tried doing simultaneous verbal translation when I came out and found that I couldn’t concentrate enough, so I drank again. My parent’s response was to send me on a world cruise, the only good thing to come out of that is that there was always at least on bar open on the ship at any time of day or night. Then I came home.”

  She was now speaking slower and slower as if she had to drag every statement from out of her soul. She ground on, “It was then I realised their grand plan. As far as they were concerned I was no use to man nor beast as an academic or in doing anything worthwhile in their god-forsaken company, so they’d market me as breeding stock. Turns out they aim to marry me off to someone who would enhance their status, if you like status by association. I had a couple of goes at running away, but they’re persistent swine and each time I ran away I’d end up drinking and in trouble and they’d drag me back home. Then out of the blue they sent me to rehab again and you know why?”

  She said fiercely, “You know why?”

  There was anger and hurt in her voice, “Only because they’ve found a senior director of a multinational firm, who’s as happily homosexual as they come, but he needs a wife, and preferably a child, to convince his Japanese bosses that he’s a worthy family man. Dad struck a deal with him and I’m supposed to roll over and get married; so I went on the run three weeks ago.”

  She suddenly sat up bolt upright. “So that’s why I’m here. I’ve blown all my cash on this week in the vain hope that I’ll meet someone who doesn’t just want me as prime breeding stock and a help their future promotion prospects. If I’m unsuccessful I’m stuffed.”

  Derek raised an eyebrow causing his bald forehead to wrinkle in layers. “Surely they can’t be that manipulative, after all you are an adult.”

  She rolled her eyes, “Oh but don’t you realise that I should be so grateful? I’ve had a good education, they’ve lavished pounds on my finishing school, paid my hospital bills, sent me on a world cruise and funded me through rehab; twice. So the least I can do is get married to this man and let them mix with the rich and find more markets for their precious company that’s obviously worth far more to them than I am.”

  The venom in her voice was palpable. Cameron sought for something to say, “But you’re an adult,” he exclaimed lamely, “they can’t force you.”

  She scoffed, “An adult without means and a serious drinking habit. My wretched father has got my passport, bank card, cheque book and life history locked in his bureau, and the bank manager in his pocket. They know and I know that I’ll eventually run out of cash and drink myself silly. I’m only here because I sold almost my entire wardrobe, including all my jewellery. If this doesn’t work I’ll get really sloshed, dragged back home, pushed up the aisle and doubtless end up at a maternity hospital. Still if you’re going to have a miserable life you might as well please someone on the way and produce something of use to someone.”

  The bitterness was biting.

  Chapter 11

  Ben

  As the silence following Roberta’s final outburst lengthened Angela realised that she’d finished, just at the same time as the final man, Ben, coughed. “I guess it’s now down to me; last, but not least as they say.”

  Ben swung his legs and started to continue as the other nine people took in his appearance.

  About five foot six tall, rotund, but not obese, and with a round face surmounted by an unruly mass of grey hair and a pair of extremely ragged grey eyebrows. The clothing was simple, a yellow open-n
ecked shirt and beige casual trousers with clean white trainers. His face was dominated by a pair of brown wire-framed spectacles that he seemed to peer through like a blinking owl. His body looked to be dominated by his arms as they were at least two inches longer than they should have been. Meanwhile his whole appearance was had what could be termed a dormouse manner. He’d been content to sit in the last chair, saying nothing until now and even now it was his turn it was obvious that he’d rather it wasn’t.

  “I’m Ben Radlett and, for completeness, I’m in the Japonica suite. As you can probably guess from my accent I come from Suffolk. To be honest I don’t know what to say about my childhood. As far as I remember it was a happy childhood, certainly no major trauma’s stand out. I just drifted through school enjoying life and not worrying about life too much. I left school at sixteen to take up a job with the local farm consortium. Did I say I was brought up on a farm? Perhaps I should have.”

  He regrouped his thoughts and continued. “At the local agricultural college I studied soil and soil nutrition and by the time I was in my early twenties I did all the fertiliser and soil erosion work for the consortium. Unfortunately, when I was twenty three, my parents died in a stupid farm accident. Dad had a heart attack while he was dipping sheep and fell into the sheep-dip pool. Mum jumped in to tend to him, slipped and knocked herself out. They were dipping sheep together like they had for years and then in one foul swoop they were gone. As they were working alone they weren’t found for two hours, by then it was far too late.”

  He paused and sipped a glass of water. “I guess it made me think about my life. Did I want to spend the rest of my life testing soil and spreading muck? To cut a long story short I became a vicar after three years of theological college in Nottingham and a three year curacy in deepest Norfolk. I’ve been vicar of St Michael’s, Eastburgh for the last six years and I must say that mostly I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”

  He paused, “So why am I here? Basically I don’t want to continue the single life, but meeting women in a non-threatening environment is almost impossible. Suppose I take out one of the congregation and it fails, do I have to move to another church? Besides I’ve often wondered when meeting ladies if I should describe myself as an Estate Agent or a VAT inspector; tell them you’re a vicar and conversation usually dries up or turns to some dreadful, unwinnable, theological or moral argument. So I’m looking for a non-threatening easy environment without overtones.”

  He withdrew into dormouse mode and Angela looked round the room, “Any questions?”

  Willow gave a wicked smile, “I knew I’d seen you before, you made the headlines. What was it? ‘Vicar with pornographic pictures cites church fête?”

  Ben squirmed. “That all boils down to a foolish decision. One of my colleagues had a hard disc failure on his computer and lost all his data. I realised how vulnerable I was if a similar thing happened to me as I keep all my records on the computer; saving the planet by saving trees and all that. I decided to install a second hard disc so that every week I could just make a copy of my files. Now I know that there are other ways of backing up, but this seemed the simplest for me. Anyway, I was at the church fête in a neighbouring parish and there in on knickknack stall was a used hard disc. Well I didn’t want anything fancy and reasoned that this would do me fine. I installed the thing and according to the directory it was already clean, so I started using it. The next day my computer was absolutely useless as it was infected with some sort of virus that I couldn’t get rid of. To cut a tedious story short I asked my treasurer, he’s a computer expert for the police, to help me sort it out. He duly arrived and played with my machine.”

  He gave a long sigh, “It was infected with something called a Najort Worm. Turns out that this is a backwards Trojan Horse type worm that the police in Holland use to infect pornographic sites, so basically if you get this worm you’ve been looking at pornographic images from one of those sites. My churchwarden took a long look at my second hard disc and found it was full of child pornography that had not been wiped too carefully off of the disc. Poor chap had no choice but to report me to the police and you can guess the rest. The local newspapers made a meal out of the photograph of the police taking away my computer; the small primary school, which is virtually next door to the vicarage, started making noises about perverts on their doorstep and most of my congregation made it clear that they thought there was no smoke without fire. In short it was an unmitigated disaster. The police were helpful and unhelpful. They swiftly announced that they thought I was the unintentional victim of circumstances as there were plenty of witnesses that I had obtained the disc months after the last pornographic file had been recorded. On the other hand they also announced that they could not completely clear my name until the end of their enquiries and that could be months away. Just before I came here my Bishop rang up and gave me a Mafia message.” He opened his fingers like he was on the telephone and spoke in a husky Italian accented voice, “Take a holiday and don’t tell anyone where you are. Call me in a fortnight.” He changed back to his normal voice, “I spotted an advert for this agency in the Church Times and rang up to find that there was a last minute vacancy. So here I am, obeying orders and looking for companionship.”

  He waved his arms “I only hope that why I am here the Bishop will apply some leverage to the police to get a swift answer, otherwise the longer it takes the more guilt by association accumulates. Buying that hard disc has proved to be the worst decision of my life.”

  There were no further questions and Angela decided to move the group onto the next phase.

  She reached down for her clipboard. “Well now we know the basic facts about each other, however that is not the same as knowing someone. So now I would like you to break into pairs and take a walk in the grounds just talking to each other. It’s half-past two now and tea is at four so your free to walk the grounds, explore the house, take a swim in the pool in the Southern stable block or just stroll into the village and back. The footpath starts just behind the swimming pool, it’s clearly labelled.”

  She paused expecting that no-one would move (as was the usual case) and she could then select the pairs. Unfortunately for her Derek thought otherwise. He sprang to his feet and did a mock bow to Gwen. “Would you care to accompany me on a stroll,” he said in his elegant voice.

  Gwen responded by standing up and offering her tiny hand. Henry took his queue and waved at Willow, “Care for walk in the open air where there are no smoking restrictions?”

  Ten seconds later they had disappeared through the doorway. Angela could see her carefully hatched matching plans falling apart as finally Riona turned to Cameron, “Fancy a talk about electronics rather than personal history?” She muttered in her aristocratic accent.

  He nodded and they left. Tereasa stood up and bowed to Angela, “Time to make my exit.”

  Angela watched her escape and decided to leave the other two alone and went into the corridor, where she almost stamped her feet in frustration. She’d carefully planned on Ben/Riona, Cameron/Roberta, Derek/Willow and Henry/Gwen and now she had Cameron/Riona, Derek/Gwen, Henry/Willow and Ben/Roberta. So as far as she was concerned it was a complete and utter disaster. According to the forms Henry loathed smokers, so what on earth was he doing with Willow? Besides his first wife, Sally, had been Welsh so Gwen had seemed a natural partner for him. As for Derek, he’d said that looks were important and then sought out Gwen! Angela groaned, as for Ben/Roberta, that liaison had complete and unmitigated disaster written all over it. She composed herself. In her experience, if the first pairings were wrong they usually lasted for at least twenty-four hours before they cried incompatibility and re-formed, so she’d just had to re-plan for Wednesday morning, or just perhaps she could re-arrange the pairs at tea time. “This will just no do,” she muttered as she walked down the corridor, “This will just not do.”

  Chapter 12

  Ben and Roberta

  Neither Ben nor Roberta spoke for at least
two minutes after everyone else had left. Finally Roberta half-grunted, “I guess that means you’re stuck with me,” while trying to slump even further down in the chair.

  Ben pursed his lips and said wistfully, “Actually had I been able to make a choice I would have chosen you.”

  She perked up slightly, “You’re not just giving me patter to keep me happy?”

  “Trust me, I’m a vicar.” He replied dryly.

  She gave an enigmatic smile and sat further up in the chair. She was positioned between Ben and the window and, for the first real time, he saw her in silhouette, which was near perfect. It wasn’t that her breasts were over large, but her hips were definitely wide and her waist slimmer than both. Whatever it was about her, it set his pulse racing. “Your hair, is it real?”

  She looked at him sitting in the bright sunlight like some sort of semi-rotund aged schoolboy complete with those dreadful wire-framed spectacles that made him look like some sort of archivist. She gave a rueful smile, “Personal questions now is it? OK, my hair’s real. Is yours grey or do you dye it to look distinguished?”

  He sighed and momentarily looked doleful, “It’s real, I started to go grey when I was twenty-two and fall out when I was twenty-five, can you believe that?” He paused, “Does your eye cause you problems?”

  “Not any more, it used to itch like hell. I’m told the brain compensates for the slower motion, I certainly don’t notice it, but,” she added depressively, “everybody else does.”

  He opened his mouth, but she jumped in, “My turn. You ever had a girl-friend?”

  Now it was his turn to be miserable, “Not really. Taken a few women out, but none of them seemed to want to continue the relationship. Not taken anyone out since I was ordained, that’s years ago, and I took one person out at college for a few months, but she dropped out and went home to Cyprus. She never wrote.”