Dream come true

But there were more surprises in store for the couple and despite growing up on opposite sides of the world, it seems they were destined to meet – sharing more than just the same taste in music and books. A month into the relationship, Raf visited Laura’s apartment for the first time. “When I walked into her place, I said, ‘Oh my god, this is so Helen – you have to meet Helen.” Raf was referring to his oldest and dearest friend in America – not only is Helen godmother to Raf’s elder daughter Viola, he even dedicated a cookbook that he wrote to her and her husband. But the name washed over Laura and she thought nothing more of it.

Soon after, Raf posted Laura a present. Excited by the romantic gesture, Laura admits she was a little disappointed when she unwrapped the present only to reveal the cookbook Raf had written. “I thought: ‘This isn’t about me; this is about you!’” she laughs. “So I put it to one side and about a month later I opened it to find a pasta recipe Raf had mentioned.” As she flicked through the pages, she stopped at an unusual drawing near the back. “It caught my eye because it was very familiar to me, both the drawing and the handwriting,” she says. On the drawing it said: ‘by Helen Bartlett and Courtney Valenti’.

At 10pm that night Raf’s phone rang. It was Laura. “She called me up and said, ‘You know in your cookbook where it says Helen Bartlett and Courtney Valenti?’ and I said, ‘Yeah that’s my friend Helen; the one I’ve been telling you about,’ and she paused and said, ‘I know Helen Bartlett – we were roommates and best friends in New York 20 years ago.’ I mean, what are the chances? That’s when I thought, ‘Okay, this is meant to be.’”

And the connections didn’t end there. They also discovered Raf’s best friend in Australia, David Moor, whom he’d been friends with for more than 20 years and had orchestrated Raf’s move to Sydney, is the oldest friend of Laura’s sister-in-law. “I told my sister-in-law I was seeing this guy called Raf and when I said he was a friend of David’s she squealed, ‘Oh, you mean Raf! Oh my god I’ve heard about Raf for the past 20 years!’ So it was almost as if, one way or another, through all these people, we were going to meet.”

Despite what increasingly looked like a match that was destined to be, there was one small thing to consider. Well, two small things, actually – Raf’s children [his elder daughter now lives in Mexico with her mother]. Friends had tried to set up Raf on dates over the years and he remembers one occasion when his 12-year-old daughter Olivia was less than pleased. “Some friends of mine that I’d invited to dinner brought a friend of theirs they were really keen on me meeting, and after they left we were taking the dishes to the kitchen and my daughter said, ‘Daddy, you’re not planning on going out with her, are you?’” That’s not to say Raf lets his children make the decisions about his love life, though. “For me as a parent, it didn’t come down to making sure it was the ‘right person’ for the kids, but rather seeing the chemistry, how they interacted and what the vibe was,” he says.

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