Entry Island

CHAPTER FOUR

It had been only too easy for him to lose confidence in himself after a series of relationship failures. The point had been reached when he had begun to believe that he was the problem.

And that was the place he had been in when Marie-Ange came into his life.

A painful, lonely place. Approaching thirty years of age he had a handful of clumsy relationships behind him, and saw only a long succession of empty nights stretching ahead. It was clear to him then that his job was going to be his life, his future. And that he would become so impossibly set in his ways that in the end sharing it would cease to be an option.

He had always been self-sufficient, even as a child. He’d had few friends and no inclination to share, even then.

His apartment before meeting Marie-Ange had been a joyless place. He had never taken the time to decorate or furnish it beyond basic requirements. The only picture that hung on the wall was a landscape painted five generations earlier by an ancestor who had come to Canada and made something of a reputation for himself as an artist. Not that Sime was particularly attached to it. It had come from his parents’ house after their accident. His sister had taken most of their stuff, but thought that Sime should have the painting. Hanging it on the wall had seemed like the best way of keeping it out from under his feet. Marie-Ange had never liked it.

For a time she had tried to turn the place into a home. Nest-building. But each of them made so many compromises, that in the end neither felt comfortable in it.

The condo was on the third floor of an apartment block in St Lambert. It had three bedrooms, and would have made an ideal first home for a couple wanting to start a family. That thought had always been in the back of Sime’s mind when he took it on. He had been in a relationship then that had lasted nearly a year, a record for him, and they had been going to move in together.

Then suddenly she was gone. Without a word. And Sime never did know why. Which is when the self-doubt had started creeping in.

Meeting people had never been easy for him. A policeman’s hours, almost by definition, are antisocial. Even harder was maintaining a relationship, because there was never any guarantee what time you would be home, or sometimes what day. Sime had never really got involved in the social life of the Sûreté, like so many of his colleagues. It had just seemed too incestuous. So the dating agency had been something like the last hope of a desperate man.

It was a friend from his academy days who first suggested it, and at first Sime had been violently opposed to the idea. But it worked away at his subconscious over several weeks, slowly breaking down all his arguments against it. And finally his resolve faltered.

It was an online agency. He had to verify for them who he was, of course, but beyond that complete anonymity was guaranteed. They provided him with a fictitious dating name that he could choose to dispense with, or not, after their first meeting.

Sime spent a whole evening filling in the questionnaire on the website, trying to answer as honestly as he could. And then when he reviewed his answers decided nobody in their right mind would want to date him. So he was both surprised and a little shocked when the agency said they had come up with a match, and that if he wanted, she would be happy to meet him.

Sime had faced down murderers, been shot at, disarmed a man with an automatic rifle on a killing spree, but he had never felt as nervous as he did the night of his first date.

They had arranged to meet in a Starbucks on Avenue du Mont-Royal Est. Sime arrived early, afraid that he would get snarled up in traffic and be late. The place was quiet when he got there and ordered a grande caramel macchiato. He sat near the window so he could see customers come and go.

Which is when he saw Marie-Ange crossing the street outside. He knew her, of course. She was one of the department’s crime scene specialists, though they had never actually worked together. Sime turned away so that she wouldn’t see him sitting in the window, but was horrified when she pushed open the door and headed for the counter. He almost cringed with embarrassment at the thought she might discover that he was there on a blind date set up by an internet dating agency. It would have been all over the division the next day. He fervently hoped that she was just in for a take-out and wouldn’t notice him.

But he had no such luck. She picked up her skinny latte from the barista and turned to look straight at him. Sime wanted the ground to swallow him up. She seemed almost startled, but there was no way of avoiding the fact that they had seen each other. So she smiled and came over to sit down at his table. Sime did his best to return her smile, but felt it was more like a grimace.

‘Hi, Sime. Fancy meeting you here.’

He blurted, ‘I’m waiting for someone.’

‘Oh?’ A wry smile spread itself across her face and she pushed up one eyebrow. ‘Hot date?’ In contrast to his agitation she seemed unnaturally relaxed.

‘Sort of.’

‘Anyone I’d know?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘Can’t be anyone in the force, then. I only seem to know cops these days.’

‘Yeah, me too.’

‘Except for your date.’

Sime tried to seem amused. ‘Yeah. Except for my date.’

A silence settled awkwardly between them and they sipped on their respective plastic lids. She glanced at her watch and Sime stole a look at her. He had never really paid her much attention before. She was just one of the guys, the short hair and boyish figure contributing to that sense of her. But he saw now that there was a wonderful depth to the green of her eyes, a finely angled jawline and rather full lips. At second glance she was really quite attractive. She looked up and caught him watching at her.

‘What time’s your date?’

‘Seven.’

She sighed. ‘Pity. You could have taken me to dinner. I’ve got nothing else to do tonight.’

And suddenly he thought, yes! I would much rather have dinner with you. With someone I didn’t have to pretend with. Someone who already knows me. Who knows I’m a cop, and what that means. He raised his eyes towards the clock on the wall. It was still only 6.55. He stood up. ‘Let’s do that.’

She frowned. ‘Do what?’

‘Have dinner?’

She laughed. ‘What about your date?’

Sime shook his head and glanced nervously towards the door in case she would suddenly turn up. ‘Never liked her much anyway.’ He held out his hand. ‘Come on.’

She laughed again and took it and stood up. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I know a great little place over on Rue Jeanne-Mance.’

They sat and talked that night in a way they never did again. In some strange sense Sime felt suddenly unchained. The wine helped loosen ingrained inhibitions, and he found himself sharing all those little fears and foibles that he had kept locked away from the world, guarding them carefully, because sharing your weaknesses makes you vulnerable. But he didn’t feel at risk, because she unburdened herself too. Told him all about her failed teenage marriage, the uncle who liked to stroke her budding breasts when she was just thirteen, her mother’s battle with alcohol and then breast cancer.

Sime told her about his parents dying when a bridge over the Salmon River collapsed as they were driving across it. About his difficulty socialising with other kids at school. His ineptitude with girls.

All of which, in retrospect, seemed pretty depressing. But they laughed a lot as well. Funny stories accumulated over nearly ten years in the force, and it was late by the time they were on their second digestifs. Sime was feeling mellow, and the alcohol made him bold enough to confess finally that the real reason he had been at Starbucks that night was to meet a woman found by an online dating agency.

Marie-Ange’s smile faded and she looked at him with curious eyes. ‘Seriously?’

He immediately regretted telling her.

‘And you stood the poor woman up without even giving her a chance?’

Sime had a rush of guilt that made it hard to meet her eye. ‘Was that really bad of me?’

She pursed her lips and nodded. ‘I gotta tell you, Sime, it was pretty mean. Especially since I was the woman you stood up.’

Sime’s jaw dropped, and he must have presented such a look of shock that she laughed so much the tears ran down her cheeks. It took him only a moment to realise the truth. That each of them had stood up their blind dates in favour of someone they already knew. And that the someone they already knew had, in fact, been their blind date.

In the end their laughter had forced the owner of the restaurant to ask them to leave. They were annoying the other customers.

They had gone back to Sime’s apartment, and that night had the best sex of their future relationship. Pure lust, like Sime had never known before. They had been married within six months.

But the truth he had learned since then was that you can’t build a whole relationship on the basis of one night. And that what might seem like a good match to a computer doesn’t always work in life.