The Good Bride Guide [Paperback]

Ben Grant is fed up with always meeting the wrong girl. Having just celebrated his 29th birthday by being dumped by his 29th girlfriend, he decides he can't go on like this. Why can't he be as blissfully happy as his best friend Ashif, about to marry the beautiful Prithi, a bride chosen for him by his parents? Suddenly Ben has a great idea: why not ask his own parents to do the same for him? But while Ben's parents see this as the perfect opportunity to set their son on the right path to matrimonial bliss, it soon becomes clear that Ben's idea of the kind of woman he wants to settle down with is quite different from that of his somewhat traditional mum and dad. Following a series of disastrous dates, Ben starts to realize that he wouldn't let his parents pick him out a shirt to wear, let alone a woman to marry. But when Ben finally meets the girl he thinks might be 'the one', he realizes that maybe he does have something to learn from his mum and dad after all. Can he learn the art of romance from his parents and land the girl of his dreams?

Born and brought up in Margate, Matt Dunn now lives in London. He has worked as a professional lifeguard, fitness-equipment salesman and, most recently, an IT headhunter, where his skill in re-writing CVs made him think he might have a talent for fiction. Visit www.mattdunn.co.uk

Chapter 1

I'm in my studio when my mobile rings, and while the sound of heavy breathing is initially exciting, it doesn't take me long to realize that it's just Ashif.

'How'd you get on with her?' he asks, evidently panting from the effort of walking along the pavement, given the heavy footsteps I can hear in the background.

'Who, Ash?'

'You know - that woman who wanted you to paint that portrait of her.' I can almost hear him grinning down the phone line. 'Nude.'

Ash is my art dealer, although when I say dealer, in truth his family own the Indian restaurant on the seafront where I display my work in return for a ten per cent cut on any that get sold.

'Ash, she was about seventy.'

'So?'

'And more importantly, she wanted me to be nude, as it turned out.'

'Ah.' There's a pause, and then Ash clears his throat. 'But you're still doing it, right?'

'What do you think?' I say, realizing I probably already know the answer to that question. 'Of course not.'

'That, Ben, is the reason you're still what's known in the trade as a "struggling artist'',' sighs Ash, no doubt picturing his commission disappearing down the drain. What else he does for money, I'm not exactly sure, but there must be something, as given the number of pictures I actually sell, or how few commissions that come my way as a result of his dealings, I can hardly live on the ninety per cent I get.

'Yes, well, as I've told you a hundred times, I'm not prepared to compromise my principles.'

Ash snorts loudly into the receiver. 'And as I've told you a thousand times, principles are for people who can afford them. And right now, that's not you.'

'Well, if you wouldn't mind perhaps qualifying some of these dodgy enquiries that you keep sending my way a little better, then maybe one day it will be.'

'So what if you have to kiss the occasional frog? It's a numbers game.'

'No, that's accountancy, and if you remember, I've given that up. This is art,' I say, conscious that it sounds more than a little pretentious.

'So, where does the term "painting by numbers" come from, then?' says Ash, feebly.

'Ash, that's...' I stop talking, and wonder again at the wisdom of letting someone who knows absolutely nothing about the art world represent me. 'Never mind. What did you want?'

'What did I want?' repeats Ash, as if he's forgotten the reason for his call. 'Oh. Right. I was wondering what you were up to.'

I stare at the painting on the easel in front of me, which I've spent most of the day tweaking, but just can't seem to get right. 'Working, Ash. That's what I do when I'm here in my studio.'

'Ah,' says Ash. 'I did wonder. Anyway, let me in, will you? I need to talk to you, and it's freezing out here.'

'You're outside? What the hell are you doing calling me on the phone, then?'

'Well, I thought you might be doing her. Painting, her, I mean. That woman. And I didn't want to interrupt you.'

'Well don't, then.'

'Wait! I've got something important to tell...'

I click the phone off and slip it back into my pocket, then try to ignore the sound of banging from the front door, until it's clear it's not going to stop, before making my way along the hallway and down the stairs. My ¬studio's in the upstairs part of an old shop, one of a few in this part of Margate's old town that the council is renting out for next to nothing to local craftspeople or artists like me in an attempt to regenerate the area, and, as I reach the ground floor, I can see Ash's face peering in anxiously through a gap in the whitewashed glass.

'Where's the fire?' I say as I let him in.

'Well, it's not in here, more's the pity,' he says, ex¬haling exaggeratedly, then nodding towards the fog breath he has produced. 'Why on earth do you work in these conditions?'

'Because they're cheap, Ash. And Turner lived just around the corner, you know?'

Ash frowns. 'Tina Turner?'

'No, Ash. Turner. The painter?' I shake my head slowly at Ash's blank expression. 'Besides, with you as my dealer, it's all I can afford.'

'Agent, please,' he says, still a little out of breath from his walk. Ash is a little on the large side, but then so would I be if I lived above the Indian Queen. 'Dealer sounds a little, well, druggy.'

'Sorry, Ashif.' I give him a mock salute. 'Agent. And what's with the suit?'

'Why? What's wrong with it?' says Ash, picking an imaginary bit of fluff from his jacket.

'Nothing. I just hope the judge was impressed.' Ash got a new BMW a few months ago - a thirtieth birthday present from his parents - and already has nine points for speeding on his licence.

He opens his mouth as if to respond, then evidently thinks better of it. 'Where have you been?' he says, as I lock the door carefully behind him. Not that there's much in here to steal, but last time I left it open, someone actually put a bin-liner full of old clothes inside, obviously harking back to the charity shop it once was. 'I've been phoning you all afternoon.'

I follow him upstairs, retrieving my mobile from pocket and looking at the screen, where Ash's two missed calls are clearly visible. 'All afternoon? I hardly think a couple of calls five minutes apart qualify as "all afternoon".'

'Yeah, but you never, er, don't answer your phone,' says Ash, frowning at his own bad English. 'If you know what I mean?'

'I'm sorry,' I lie, having ignored his earlier calls on purpose, then point towards my painting. 'I was just a little preoccupied with this. Plus I must have left my phone on "vibrate".'

Ash raises one eyebrow. 'Kinky.'

I can't help but make a face back at him. 'It's about the only pleasure I get nowadays.'

'Well, if you'd have taken up that old woman on her offer...'

'As if.'

'For the millionth time, it's pronounced "Ash-eef".'

'Very funny, Ash.'

'So have you never, you know, done it with someone you've painted?' he asks, walking over towards the window and wiping the condensation off one of the panes.

'Of course.'

Ash looks round in surprise. 'You have?'

'Oh yes.' I nod. 'Because that's what always happens. In porn movies.'

Ash looks a little disappointed. 'So, no one new on the horizon?'

'Nope. The women I meet nowadays don't seem to think that "Ben Grant - struggling artist" is much of a catch. And to be honest, it's getting to the stage that whenever I do meet someone, even if I can be bothered to ask them out on a date, there's a part of me that's ¬hoping they won't turn up.'

'Why ever not?'

I sigh. 'Because it'll just be the same again. We'll have a bit of fun, and then it'll start to go bad, and it's back to square one. And I'm getting a little tired of it all.'

'Yes, well, perhaps you shouldn't have made Amy dump you, then, should you?'

'Let's not go down that particular conversational road again, please.' Amy and I split up about a month ago, and there's hardly been a day since then that Ash hasn't reminded me of the fact. 'And, anyway, I didn't make her dump me. The decision was mutual.'

'Mutual?' Ash laughs. 'As in she decided to split up with you, and you had no choice but to agree.'

'No, because it was the right thing to do. For both of us. She wanted a commitment out of me. And I wasn't prepared to give her one.'

Ash nods slowly. 'I can see why she dumped you, then.'

'Get your mind out of the gutter, please. A com¬mitment.'

'Why not?'

I shrug. 'She just wasn't the one. There was no spark. No thunderbolt.'

'No? So why can't you stop thinking about her, then?'

'I don't think about her, really. Just...well, about us.'

Ash raises both eyebrows, and takes a step backwards. 'Us?'

'No. Our relationship, I mean. Amy and me. And why it went the way of all the others.'

Ash gives me a weary look. 'Because you weren't ¬prepared to marry her?'

'Yes, but why? She was my twenty-ninth girlfriend, you know. That's one for every year of my life. You'd have thought I'd have learned something about relationships by now. At least enough to keep one going.'

'But you can always go back to her, right? I mean, you said she was keeping that particular door open for you?'

I make a face. 'Yes, but it wouldn't simply be going back to her, would it? It'd mean giving all this up.' I ¬gesture around my sparsely furnished studio, trying to ignore the cracked panes of glass in the window. While I've always loved art, in actual fact, I trained as an accountant, and worked as one up until last year, at a medium-sized firm here in Margate, which was where I met Amy. But, recently, I'd begun to feel more than a ¬little restless - in both my job and personal life - so six months ago I decided to leave, to try to make a go of it as a painter. Leaving Amy came a little bit later, but I can't pretend the two were unrelated.

'Amy said that, did she?'

'Not in so many words. But I think she always assumed that my painting was just something I needed a little time off for. You know, to get it out of my ¬system.'

'Get it out of your system?' Ash laughs. 'What, like glandular fever?'

'I'm serious, Ash. Accountancy wasn't for me. And if Amy couldn't see that...Well, that just proves that she wasn't either.'

'But she wanted to marry you, Ben.'

'No, Ash. She wanted to marry the me I wasn't happy being. There's an important difference. And this...It's always been my dream. And you've got to go for your dreams, haven't you?'

He walks over to the painting I've been working on for most of the day and studies it for a moment or two. 'Ben, your trouble is that you're a perfectionist, who expects everything to meet your exacting standards,' he says, picking it up and turning it through a hundred and eighty degrees, before placing it back on the easel. It's an abstract, with one large blue rectangle next to a smaller, darker one, and I'm a little annoyed that it actually looks better that way up. 'And if it doesn't...'

'You're talking about my work, right?...