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  Dearest Ellie,

  You are cordially invited to the Divorce Party of Cassandra Wheeler (formerly Stud-Wheeler).

  Where: The Wheeler (formerly Stud-Wheeler) residence.

  When: Friday 14th Feb

  Dress to impress.

  Please bring a bottle. Or five.

  I let out a deep sigh as I slotted it into my divorce party file, which was getting fatter by the day. Then I pulled myself up from the chair to face the meeting and Dominic’s ill-founded plans for my company.

  Before I entered the meeting room, I saw Mandi through the glass walls and her latest assistant, sitting beside her, poised to take minutes as though she were at the G8 summit. The investor panel, which consisted of four heavy players in the tech and entertainment industry, were seated in a row opposite Dominic, who’d commandeered his side of the table as though he were hosting an episode of The Apprentice.

  He stood up when I entered the room. ‘Eleanor,’ he said, gesturing for me to sit beside him in a smaller chair, ‘so nice of you to join us.’

  I forced a smile, then nodded at the investors.

  Straight away, Mandi pulled her pink glittery laptop out of her bag, adjusted her headband and smoothed down her kaftan. I studied her ensemble. It was unlike her to wear anything that wasn’t nipped in at the waist and tailored to her ribcage. She clapped her hands, and looked around, then clapped them again, as though she expected the lights to dim. When they didn’t she leaned over and switched them off herself. Then she plugged her laptop into the projector, pressed a few buttons and a map identical in colour to her kaftan appeared on the wall.

  ‘OK, everyone,’ she began. ‘Are we all ready?’

  Dominic sighed.

  I nodded and smiled. Mandi’s assistant clapped.

  Mandi clasped her hands together and grinned. ‘I have fabulous news. Amazing! The best news ever!’

  ‘You’re leaving,’ Dominic mumbled.

  She ignored him, further dramatising with a drum roll to the table.

  ‘As of this week,’ she continued, ‘we’ve finally done it. We have matchmakers stationed in every continent!’ She pressed a key on her laptop and suddenly pink hearts popped up all over the globe, presumably identifying matchmaker infiltration hotspots.

  She looked around the room and began clapping herself. Her assistant joined in.

  ‘Yay, everyone!’ Mandi said. ‘Well done, us!’

  Dominic raised both eyebrows. ‘Every continent?’ he said, leaning back in his chair. ‘We have matchmakers in Antarctica?’

  Mandi shook her head, as though she were about to reprimand a troublesome toddler. ‘Antarctica is an iceberg, Dominic, not a continent.’

  He rolled his eyes.

  ‘Besides, it’s melting,’ she said. ‘It’s unwise to expand into an economy with diminishing returns. Didn’t they teach you that at Harvard?’

  One of the investors closed his eyes and sank into his chair.

  Mandi glided over to the map like an air hostess pointing out the safety exits. ‘Ten here…’ she pointed to France ‘…ten here…’ then Germany ‘…and here…’ then Italy ‘…twelve here…’ Sweden. She reached up and pointed to New York. ‘Twenty matchmakers in New York…’ her finger moved across America ‘…five in LA, seven in San Fransisco…’ then down to Australia ‘… eight in Melbourne, five in Sydney…’ The pointing continued, as did Mandi’s list of countries.

  Ten minutes later, when I was feeling somewhat dazed, Mandi leaned forward and tapped on the keypad. Suddenly pink hearts started racing across the wall like some kind of customised disco ball. It felt as though they were throbbing in time to the pulse in my head. ‘One hundred and one matchmakers,’ Mandi concluded with a loud applause.

  ‘We could make a coat out of them,’ Dominic mumbled.

  Mandi glared at him, her applause unfaltering. Her intern joined in.

  ‘We did it,’ Mandi said. ‘It took ten years, but we did it. This is possibly the most exciting day of my life!’

  I grinned at Mandi and high-fived her from across the table.

  Dominic shook his head as though struggling to release himself from a disturbing dream. Then he stood up and disconnected Mandi’s laptop as if disarming a nuclear bomb. He replaced it with his laptop and went on to present the previous year’s accounts, taking personal responsibility for everything that was profitable and apportioning blame, mostly to me, for everything that wasn’t. Then he concluded with his strategy for the coming year.

  ‘Client retention,’ he declared, as though he’d discovered the cure for cancer.

  I frowned. One of the investors leaned forward.

  Dominic continued. ‘Currently we’re retaining clients for an average of six months. If we could up that to twelve, we’d double our profits.’

  The investor who was leaning forward, interrupted. ‘Adjusting for client acquisition costs,’ he said, ‘we’d actually triple our profits.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Dominic.

  Mandi’s hand shot up.

  Dominic ignored it.

  Mandi coughed loudly.

  I gestured at Mandi to speak.

  She turned to Dominic. ‘But our job is to match people. To find them partners. We want them to find love and leave our agency. That’s what they’re paying us for.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mandi’s assistant chipped in. ‘The clients get upset if they’ve been with us for months without being presented with a life partner.’

  Mandi glared at her.

  Dominic ignored them both. Then he tapped the keys on his laptop.

  He continued. ‘You can see from my projections, if we delay matching our clients by a week or so each time, it will prolong the duration of the service, significantly increasing the revenue from monthly subscriptions.’

  He pressed a key and a bar graph was projected onto the wall.

  One of the investors made a note on a pad in front of him. Another one checked his mobile.

  ‘Another significant change I propose,’ Dominic said, leaning back expansively, ‘is with technology.’

  All four investors sat up straight. The one with the mobile in his hand quickly put it back in his pocket.

  ‘Apps,’ Dominic declared, this time as though he’d discovered a renewable energy source. He tapped on his laptop and then another graph appeared, seemingly demonstrating a considerable reduction in costs and an exponential growth in profits.

  ‘Matchmaking apps.’ He smiled a self-congratulatory smile, while pressing keys on his laptop, which projected an array of charts and screenshots onto the wall. ‘If we convert our service to a digital interface, we’ll cut staffing costs by ninety per cent.’

  As Dominic continued babbling on about profit margins and shareholder dividends, I gripped the sides of my chair and starting counting back from a hundred, a technique Dr Phil had explored on a recent episode about anger management. I counted slowly and purposefully, breathing deeply as I did, but at fifty-six, I could no longer stand to listen to Dominic’s attempts to brainwash the investors into agreeing to erode every value that the agency had been founded upon.

  I stood up and glared at him. ‘Enough,’ I said.

  Dominic stepped back. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You’re excused,’ I said, pushing past him and slamming shut his laptop, bar graph wilting as I did.

  Mandi sat forward in her seat. An investor smirked.

  Dominic glared back at me. ‘What’s the matter, Eleanor? Are you not concerned about profits?’

  ‘Of course I am concerned about profits,’ I said. ‘My house is falling down, I’m thirty-six and still wearing Primark shoes. I had more disposable income when I was twenty than I do now. I would love nothing more than a nice fat dividend once in a while. But—’ I turned to the investors ‘—that is not why I am here. That is not why I founded this company.’ I turned back to Dominic. ‘So yes, Dominic, I am concerned about profits. But what I’m more concerned about is our clients.’

  D
ominic rolled his eyes, as though I was about to suggest we pitch for government-funded matchmaking.

  ‘This year,’ I continued, ‘we’ve had more divorces than marriages. Did you know that, Dominic?’

  He straightened his tie.

  ‘Last year alone, our clients reported 14,198 failed relationships and 1,239 broken engagements.’

  Mandi’s eyes widened.

  I continued, ‘Six hundred and seventy-five divorces.’

  Mandi gasped.

  I leaned forward and connected Mandi’s laptop back to the projector. ‘Mandi’s presentation showed we’re doing a great job. We have contributed to more marriages than any of the online agencies. However, we could do better. We’re helping people find love. But I believe we should extend our service to help our couples maintain their relationships. They need our support.’

  Mandi shook her fist in the air like a ‘let ’em ’ave it’ angry cartoon character.

  Dominic tried to speak but I silenced him with a glare and continued.

  ‘We offer a personal service. That’s how we differentiate from all the other dating agencies. The superficial swipe-to-reject dating apps out there are feeding the narcissistic monster that is sabotaging the fundamental principles of marriage.’ I narrowed my eyes at Dominic. ‘Besides,’ I added, ‘if we dehumanise matchmakers, who’s to say we won’t dehumanise daters?’

  Dominic shook his head. ‘What does that even mean?’

  I sighed, wishing Matthew was there to back me up by citing Freudian and Jungian papers.

  Dominic rolled his eyes and began checking emails on his phone.

  I whipped out the divorce party invitation and slid it across the table towards the investors.

  ‘This is the tenth one I’ve received this month,’ I said. ‘We need to take action.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Mandi.

  One of the investors nodded.

  I continued. ‘No one gets married thinking they’ll divorce.’ I looked the investors in the eyes. ‘No one falls in love thinking it won’t last.’

  Dominic glanced up from his phone.

  I cleared my throat. ‘We all hope for the best but few of us are equipped to deal with the worst.’

  I noticed one of the investors was blinking rapidly and rubbing a tan line where his wedding ring used to be.

  ‘And how do you propose we do that?’ Dominic asked, as though I’d suggested we populate Pluto.

  ‘Instead of cutting staff,’ I said, ‘we should recruit more, invest in their training. We should equip our matchmakers with the knowledge and the skills to support our clients.’ I glared at Dominic. ‘That is something even the most nifty app could never do.’

  Dominic smirked. ‘Nifty?’ he said, his expression implying that the use of old-lady vocabulary could compromise the credibility of my argument.

  I continued, keen to move on. ‘We should train all of our matchmakers as dating psychologists.’

  Dominic rolled his eyes again, and let out a why-don’t-we-feed-the-starving-in-Africa-while-we’re-at-it sigh.

  I continued, pretending to ignore him. ‘I want us to be pioneers in our field.’

  Dominic threw up his hands. ‘Oh, come on, Eleanor, that will cost a fortune.’

  The investor with the tan line leaned forward and raised his hand to silence Dominic. Then he stared at me for a moment. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘you’ve got my vote.’

  Dominic went to speak but another investor cut him off. ‘Me too,’ he said.

  The other two investors nodded in agreement. ‘Let’s do it,’ one said.

  The remaining investor, who was also Dominic’s grandfather, turned to him. ‘I’m with Ellie on this,’ he said.

  I smiled and, rather smugly, held out my hand to Dominic. He bypassed it, grabbed his laptop and then stormed out of the room, buttocks clenching as he did.

  As soon as he’d left, Mandi jumped up from her seat and began clapping wildly.

  ‘Yay, Ellie!’ she shouted.

  Her assistant followed her lead. ‘Yay!’ she said.

  Perhaps it was because this was an unusual situation for them, or maybe they were genuinely moved by my proposal, but for whatever reason, the investors began to clap too. That was until one of them must have realised that it was a little odd and stopped. At which point the rest followed and then filed out of the room, checking their mobiles, seemingly trying to pretend it hadn’t happened.

  That evening, as I fought my way towards the underground, the wind battered my umbrella and rain swept under it and into my face. I squinted my eyes and pushed ahead. I may have won the case against Dominic—a victory for the relationships of others—but the jury was still out on how Nick would take the news that we had failed to conceive yet again.

  The moment I reached our street, my umbrella finally buckled under the elements and, as I waded through a giant puddle on our front path, I wondered if our marriage would survive this storm.

  Chapter 3

  Before I opened the front door, I noticed the hall light was off. Nick wasn’t home yet.

  ‘Of course, out drinking,’ I mumbled under my breath, although fully aware there was no one to hear me.

  I ruffled my umbrella, drops of rain splattering up the walls, then I bent the spokes back into line and shoved it into the stand next to Nick’s giant work-branded golf umbrella. It baffled me why corporations seemed so keen to advertise that they employed people who played golf in the rain.

  After I’d shaken my coat and hung it over the radiator, I made my way into the kitchen. I looked around the empty room, then opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of wine. It had been almost a year of not drinking, priming my body for reproduction, but now I was looking forward to drowning my non-compliant ovaries in Pinot Grigio.

  I leaned against the counter and poured myself a glass. As soon as I took a gulp, my nerves settled and a warm sensation spread through my veins. I took another gulp and gazed up at the ceiling, then back down at our shabby kitchen. I squinted my eyes, trying to superimpose the building plans we’d had drawn up years ago onto the sixties-style laminate shambles in front of me. I knew exactly how it should look. I didn’t have far to go for inspiration. Every house on the street had been knocked through into their side-return and extended out back to create the trademark South West London statement kitchen. I took another sip and wondered if the white gloss Poggenpohl dream would ever be mine.

  ‘Cheers,’ I said to the peeling work surface. ‘Me and my kitchen, living the dream.’

  I took another gulp and then checked my phone. It was 7 p.m. I called Nick. No answer. I took another gulp of wine and called Matthew to rant.

  There a clattering noise in the background when he answered. ‘Twice in one day,’ he said, eventually. ‘I’m honoured.’

  ‘Can you talk?’ I asked.

  He sighed. ‘I can talk, and I would love to talk. However, the real question is whether I will be allowed to talk.’ There was the sound of something crashing to the floor, followed by wailing. ‘Shit. I mean, sugar,’ he said.

  ‘Everything OK?’ I asked.

  There was silence, a muffled sound and then Matthew returned. ‘Little sod keeps falling off his chair.’ There was a faint sobbing in the background. ‘It’s this bloody booster seat. I’m sure it has an eject button. There you go, Zachary. Now eat your pasta.’

  ‘Shall I call you back?’

  ‘No, no. Are you OK?’

  I took another gulp of wine. I knew he would know better than to ask me directly about ‘the test’.

  ‘Angelica, leave the vase.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ I said. ‘It’s just—’

  Suddenly there was another crash followed by a scream. ‘Fuck. I mean, fudge. Fiddlesticks.’

  ‘Look, I’ll call you back tomorrow,’ I said.

  ‘No, no.’ Matthew’s tone had an urgency to it. ‘We can talk now.’ He paused, then made a strange squealing noise. ‘Angelica, sweetheart, please don’t eat the broken glas
s.’

  I grimaced. ‘It sounds kind of hectic there?’

  ‘Just another day in paradise,’ he said. ‘Zachary, eat the pasta, don’t stick it up your nose.’

  I thought for a moment about telling him the result, but I realised he’d probably guessed anyway. Besides, any mention would most likely provoke a diatribe about some study linking new parents to suicidal tendencies.

  ‘Don’t suppose you fancy coming to a divorce party with me next Friday night?’ I asked.

  ‘Angelica, I said no! Hang on, Ellie, I should really sweep up this glass.’

  I continued, ‘I need some company and Nick’s entertaining clients. Again.’

  His pitch suddenly increased. ‘A party?’ he said. ‘One that doesn’t involve soft play, chicken nuggets, or a balloon-wielding entertainer?’

  I laughed. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Don’t you need to arrange a sitter or something?’

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘It’s about time their mother did some mothering.’

  The bottle of Pinot Grigio was almost empty by the time I heard Nick’s key in the lock. My throat dried up as I mouthed the words I would say to him. I downed the remainder of the wine, and mouthed them again. It was almost as if the act of saying them out loud would make them more final.

  We will never have children.

  I’d said it in my mind over and over all day: in the pauses between conversations with Mandi, in the lulls during the investor meeting, while Dominic sashayed around the office. Even wiping my bottom in the toilet had felt melancholic. Mine would be the only bottom I would ever wipe, I’d thought. I’d never change a nappy or lovingly slather Sudocrem on a rashy crack. Every thought seemed to extrapolate into a video projection of never-to-be-realised moments: the first steps, a tender kiss at bedtime, nursing a grazed knee, adjusting a school tie, a comforting cuddle when the world seemed cruel. Being a mother had so many facets. And I would know none of them.

  I twirled my empty glass by its stem and looked out beyond our neighbour’s roof at the tiny glimpse of sky. I liked to think my mother and father were up there somewhere, looking down, keeping tabs on the little three-year-old girl they left behind. Suddenly I found myself laughing. It seemed so unfair, almost deliberately orchestrated, to be denied a mother and then to be denied motherhood too. I dropped my head into my hands, knocking the glass to the floor.