The engagement party went by, as parties do. All that planning for a few hours of speeches and glitter. Despite herself, Ani enjoyed it, the music, the clapping, the smiles on the faces of her family, Manisha looking so pretty and so genuinely happy. As Ani sat, her feet aching in the gold heels Aunt Zhosi had forced on her, her grandmother (also her great-aunt, confusingly,) toddled over and pinched her cheek. ‘Good and plump! Such a healthy girl.’
Ani winced. ‘Hi, Bubs. Here, sit down.’ She pulled up a seat for the wiry little woman.
Her grandma shook her head. ‘No seats needed, thank you, I’m not dying. How about you, my Anisha? When will it be your turn? When will you meet a nice boy?’
‘Um, I don’t know, when the male population of London stops being such a bunch of useless babies?’ She thought fleetingly of the handsome barrister, Adam Robins. That was the kind of man she needed. Suave. Successful. Not on the rebound. Yet any time she met one she said something to drive them away.
‘You can meet a nice girl instead if you like. We wouldn’t mind. Mrs Kapoor’s granddaughter had a wedding with an English girl. They both wore saris!’
‘Thanks, Bubs. Sadly I don’t think that’s an option.’
Her grandmother peered at her. ‘It’s your job, Anisha. Spending all that time divorcing people, it can’t be good for you.’ She tapped her own scrawny chest. ‘Your heart. It must suffer.’
Ani would have contradicted her, saying she didn’t divorce people, she just helped when things were already broken. Gave them the gift of a dignified ending. Offered an exit when there was no hope. But it was possible her grandma was right about her heart. She just had to hope that the crazy project might work.
Chapter 7 How Everyone Met Everyone
Rosa
‘Are your emissions killing the planet?’
It was 2001 and I was making my way through Bath University Freshers’ Fair when I suddenly heard the words. I sniffed at myself, alarmed, before realising the boy who’d called to me was manning the Greenpeace stall. He was six foot tall, tanned from a summer working on organic farms, and his dreadlocks and beard were bleached almost white. We drifted towards each other as the night wore on, until we were furiously snogging on his fetid futon, under a poster that pleaded with us to ‘Stop Whaling Now’…
‘Stop Wailing?’ Suzanne said, frowning (or maybe, it was hard to tell).
‘Whaling,’ said Rosa. ‘You know, like whales. The animals?’
‘Oh, those.’ Suzanne turned to Jason. ‘Rosa isn’t really a writer, of course, but will it do?’
Rosa laid down the draft article she’d been reading to them: Jason wanted ‘how they met’ stories for each of the exes, so she’d had to delve deep into her memories of the time before David. BD. It seemed like another life.
Jason was listening with his chin in his hands. ‘So what happened next? Why didn’t it work out?’
‘Oh, the usual uni stuff. You know.’ The Tom thing had lasted for ten days, a long time in First Year, and mainly involved strategically bumping into each other in the student union while Supergrass played on the stereo. Then he was spotted tangling pierced tongues with a tattooed girl called River (‘Puddle, more like,’ said Ani, fast becoming Rosa’s favourite person at Bath), and Rosa began exchanging significant glances with David Strauss, the editor of the student paper (despite Tom deeming all media ‘the immoral finger-puppets of capitalism’), and that was that.
‘Well, I can’t wait to read the others.’
Rosa looked at Suzanne, whose nostrils were doing their best to express incredulity. ‘You mean…it’s OK?’
‘It’s great. I love the voice.’ Jason smiled warmly, gathering up his iPad and pushing back his shaggy fair hair. ‘Got to run, I have to interview the head of the World Bank in five, but top work, Rosa.’
Suzanne watched him go, her eyes fixed somewhere round the bottom of his suit jacket. She whipped her head round; Rosa hastily stared at her article. ‘Hmph. Well, you better get on and set those dates up. Jason will be watching with a lot of interest.’ Almost as much interest as Suzanne was taking in his bum.
‘Sure thing. It’s all underway,’ Rosa lied.
As Suzanne stalked off, muttering dire words on where were the pull quotes for the bloody juice cleanse story for God’s sake, Rosa went back to her desk and found the Twitter account she believed was Tom—@manarchist. She sent a message. Hi, Tom, is that you? How are you?? Sorry to get in touch out of the blue but would love to pick your brains about something.
As she awaited his response, she wondered if Marnie would like him. She’d been tweeting about the project already:
@marnieinthecity Can’t wait to get started on #exfactor dating project. My fab friend is going to find me a lovely date!!!
But of course she’d like him. Tom was handsome, and passionate, and maybe he’d started showering more than once a week by now, and Marnie seemed to like most men, regardless of looks, age, intelligence, or even not-being-a-twatness. As long as he was single, Rosa was pretty sure her work was done.
* * *
Ani.
He was late. Why were they always late? And I didn’t like what I was wearing. I’d probably be too hot in the theatre, and sweat on him. And while I was counting my anxieties, why were we going to the theatre anyway? Wasn’t it more traditional on a first date to actually, you know, talk?
Ani stopped, and sighed, pulling her mind from 2010 back to the present day. Across the desk, Catherine—who was twenty-seven but looked fourteen—was on the phone to her mum talking about the 5:2 diet. ‘So today all I’ve had is four carrots, one boiled egg…’
Checking her boss wasn’t around—he was out at a boozy lunch in his club—Ani called Helen. ‘I need help.’
Helen sounded stressed. ‘I need help too. This bloody article.’
‘Tell me about it. What am I supposed to be saying?’
‘Well, just a bit about the guy, how you met, why it didn’t work out, that sort of thing. Which one was he again?’
‘The one who took me to the most God-awful play I’ve ever seen. Where the cast came up and threw stuff at you, remember I told you about it?’
‘Nope. I’m going to need more than that for the database.’ Helen and Rosa kept a mental Rolodex of all Ani’s dates over the years. It was well into the hundreds by now, and sometimes Ani couldn’t even remember them herself.
‘Simon, 2010, receding hair, bought himself a drink at the theatre and didn’t ask if I wanted one, stuck to soda water all night while I accidentally got drunk, theatre critic?’
‘Oh yes, got it now. Awkward Theatre Critic Guy. And you’ve picked him for Rosa?’
‘Well, they have the same job, and he was quite good-looking, and he wasn’t so bad. Just—you know.’
‘Not quite right for you?’
‘Yes. And don’t say I’m commitment-phobic.’ Ani could hear Helen’s diplomatic silence.
‘Maybe he was just nervous back then. Why didn’t it go anywhere?’
‘Aside from taking me to the world’s worst play and not asking if I wanted a drink? I don’t know. I don’t think he fancied me. No kiss. So I didn’t call him.’ Sometimes Ani found it overwhelming, how hard it was to connect with people. Dating was like groping for a foothold on a cliff, and falling again and again. It was hard to imagine how anything could ever