The Trouble with Single Women Page 10

  ‘He sticks a spoon in the geezer’s mouth to hold back his tongue. He’s an epileptic in ’e? Anyways, we gets the ambulance just in case. The blonde woman is still pretty upset like.

  ‘Screaming her head off as a matter of fact with her eyes tight shut . . . So, the ambulancemen get her to hop in as well, see if they can calm her down a bit at the ’ospital . . . Then the black-haired old gel, says she’s a friend and she’s got to go too . . . they’ve gone to St Thomas—

  ‘Still, all’s well, eh? Can I get you a cup of tea, love?’

  At the hospital, Les had been summoned to take a sedated Veronica home. The woman who had looked after her introduced herself as Rita Mason. She had refused an offer of a lift from Fee.

  ‘I’m sure Veronica would like to thank you herself, when she’s a bit better. Has she got your telephone number?’ Fee asked, intrigued by Rita’s appearance.

  ‘Oh, she doesn’t have to worry. Tell her I’ll be in touch. I know where she lives now—’

  ‘Oh no,’ Fee interrupted. ‘That’s my flat . . . Veronica lives in north London. Let me—’

  But Rita Mason was already halfway out of the door.

  ‘See you then,’ she said.

  At the time, it sounded like such an innocuous remark to make.

  Later, as Fee lay in her bed and waited for sleep, she thought of Claire’s advice that she should resort to a lonely-hearts column. It wasn’t such a bad idea – but not for quite the purpose that Claire had in mind. Fee began to compose a suitable ad. in her head.

  ‘Confirmed spinster, no psychotic tendencies, thirty-five plus, requires female platonic playmate to deflect the pity of others. And have a good time.’

  She’d forgotten something. Then, Fee remembered, ‘Only genuine applicants need apply—’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘FABULOUSLY FLESHY!’

  On Wednesday morning, Imogen Banks stood in front of her full-length art-deco mirror in her warehouse flat, reasonably pleased with the overall effect.

  Some years before, after several near-death experiences while on a variety of diets (the near-death of others, since Imogen tended to become homicidal when hungry), she had finally come to terms with being plump. Now, when she looked in the mirror, she no longer thought, ‘Fat.’ She had programmed herself to say, ‘Fabulously fleshy!’

  It worked – sometimes.

  Today, she had chosen to wear a black suit with multicoloured buttons the size of small frisbees; bright red lipstick; red, yellow, blue and green ear-rings that looked like cascading Smarties and a small, emerald-green handbag. She also wore two watches, assorted gold bracelets and a pearl necklace.

  If Fiona Travers’s dress code was based on the premise that less was better, Imogen Banks had the firm conviction that too much was never enough.

  Imogen also believed that selling yourself hard, cheating, deception, manipulation and emotional blackmail were all reasonable modes of behaviour in order to look after number one with any degree of success.

  Anyone who claimed otherwise was a hypocrite and a wimp. Good girls, Imogen Banks despised. Bad girls, if they were feminists, she also loathed.

  Feminism, as far as she was concerned, was the cause of her immense difficulty in locating her lifelong soul mate. It had scared off men; driven them into the arms of other males. The sisterhood sucked.

  If anyone asked her for the worst punishment she could contemplate, it would be to share the company of women for purposes other than work. To share their company voluntarily for pleasure was unthinkable.

  Did Elizabeth I or Boadicea or Jane Austen sit around with a gaggle of girls discussing homeopathic cures for cystitis or contemplating the spiritual meaning of menstruation? No, they did not.

  Imogen had never had a female best friend in her life nor did she want one. In her view, females fell into two categories: rivals or wives. The rest she took pride in stepping on – or over.

  As for the glass ceiling, Imogen Banks considered it as real as the unicorn. And she should know. She was the employer of a staff of a dozen females.

  In her opinion, women in work were nothing but trouble – herself excepted. Gynaecological difficulties, eating disorders, neurosis brought on by lack of self-confidence, maternity leave, childcare difficulties, old mothers to take to the chiropodist, HRT implants needing to be replaced, lumps in the breast, and always banging on about the three S’s – self-esteem, sex, and second-class citizenship.

  Imogen would have preferred to employ men – but they were so much more expensive.

  Astra TV was a company that Imogen Banks had set up while she was waiting for the real business of her life to begin: a husband, a home. She did not like babies. She did, however, wish to be a mother. She could see herself – a couple of stone lighter, hair bleached, complete facial reconstruction – cavorting on a beach in Maine with two pre-Raphaelite children, born toddler-size. In the distance, her millionaire husband would snooze on the deck of their all-white clapboard house.

  While she waited for the fairy-tale to come true, she filled in her time by making her company a highly successful endeavour. She would tell those impressed with her profits and prospects that you can’t change a business plan’s nappy or read a bedtime story to an award-winning comedy series.

  Everyone else except Imogen could see that her heart lay not with Mr Right and babywipes but in the family-free zone of the workplace. Still, if the woman wanted to fool herself, it was nobody’s business but her own.

  Imogen checked her watch; 6.45 a.m. She would be in the office, as usual, within half an hour. She locked her front door. After a massive investment in maximalist decor, Imogen’s warehouse flat still made her feel as if she was squatting in an aircraft hangar, so she was always relieved to leave home. She hailed a taxi.

  ‘See the news last night, it’s terrible—’ the taxi driver began, after she had given him Astra’s address. His radio blared Country ’n’ Western.

  She leaned forward. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Could you turn the radio off and keep quiet? There’s a good lad.’

  Imogen Banks was always direct – except, of course, when being devious produced greater rewards. And nothing was beyond dissection – not even the allegedly mysterious process of falling in love. Deconstruction of a romance she found a doddle.

  She could generally tell in the first couple of hours of an affair into which particular category it fell. Narcissism? Father fixation? Masochism?

  She knew her own heart inside out. Or, at least, she thought she did. Over the years, a pattern had established itself. Man after man would come, see, be conquered – and then, infuriatingly for Imogen, return to his previous love – usually, his wife.

  On a couple of occasions, she had even had the humiliation of seeing a married lover return to his previous mistress.

  She could hook a man, play with him, land him on shore – but once he got bored with what at first were regarded as her unique attractions and later as her ‘excesses’, that was it.

  Imogen believed that her ‘excesses’ were more accurately described as being too bright, too independent, too self-sufficient and far too bloody expensive for many men to handle. Still, she never gave up hope. She profoundly believed that for every human being there is Another.

  If only his wife would let him go.

  Imogen’s belief in self-help, or rather help yourself, when it came to other women’s men, did not cause her any worry. A married man was far more grateful than his single counterpart; thankful – at least in the early stages – that you were not his wife. A married man had certain constraints on his time, which allowed Imogen to proceed with her own life without undue pressure. Above all, a married man belonged to someone else. Imogen enjoyed stealing from her fellow woman.

  Recently, however, the lack of permanence in her relationships had begun to trouble her. Not least because she had convinced herself that, until she settled down, she couldn’t class herself as happy. Not properly happy. So she had decid
ed to apply herself much more assiduously to the business of finding a man she could keep.

  Imogen had read in a magazine that odour counts for more than ardour. Each woman gives off smells that are perfectly compatible with those smells of a specific male. Find him – and you have a partner for life no matter how few the interests in common, or how minimal the mutual attraction.

  Imogen was now an inveterate sniffer.

  If she couldn’t smell out a suitable future spouse, then nobody could. But progress, so far, had been slow. She had developed a very keen nose – easily identifying brands of aftershave, deodorant, moisturizers and a wide range of stale sweat, but the stink of true love had eluded her.

  This morning, as she paid her fare and waited impatiently for a receipt, she indulged herself in a warm-up exercise. She inhaled deeply, then told the bemused taxi driver, ‘Chinese takeaway; Mum roll-on and perhaps a little splash of Ralph Lauren’s Polo?’

  The offices of Astra Television, in an anonymous block off Baker Street, were decorated in stark black and white and red. Or, as the staff preferred, referring to Imogen’s frequent outbursts, ‘Black and white and bled all over—’

  Imogen perched on her unnecessarily large desk in her office and looked down on the three women sitting in a semi-circle around her. They looked up at her expectantly, waiting for her to speak.

  She opened her mouth. ‘What we have is crap—’ she said crisply.

  ‘Crap,’ she repeated. ‘Every woman so far in the film hedges her bets far too much.’

  She mimicked the voice of an interviewee she had just watched on tape, ‘ “I’m really happy as I am but if somebody came along, well then, who knows?” Yuk! Can’t even one of these bloody people be a bit more positively single?’

  ‘This is a good idea.’ Imogen banged her hand on the desk. ‘So, we’re going to find the right people if it kills us.’

  ‘We have looked,’ began Hilly Byrne, thirty-two, the director of the documentary now under discussion in its rough-cut form.

  ‘Not hard enough, obviously,’ Imogen snapped, jealous of Hilly’s anorexia.

  Two months earlier, Astra had been commissioned to make a fifty-minute documentary for television based on an idea proposed by Imogen. She had called it The Perfumed Pound – the Rise of the Spending Spinster.

  The theme was the growing economic clout of an increasing number of heterosexual single women – how they plan for a husbandless future, how they spend now. And what impact their independence might have on the rest of society.

  Imogen had been instructed to ensure that the film was ‘upbeat, sexy, fun’. So, her team had hauled in the usual single female millionaire entrepreneurs with loads of dosh and not much dress sense.

  Each had proved reluctant to commit herself on film to the idea that life without a man might have more perks than coupledom.

  ‘Why can’t one of them say, for instance, “Being single is sublime,” ’ Imogen demanded. ‘Or something sassy, like “Who needs a husband to spend all my money?” ’

  ‘It’s just a thought,’ ventured Angela Stead, in her late twenties, one of the two researchers working on the film. She had slight scarring from teenage acne, and more dandruff than one might expect in an era of medicated shampoos.

  ‘It’s just a thought,’ Angela pressed on. ‘But what if your kind of spinster – happily single, determined to live without a live-in partner – suppose she doesn’t actually exist?’

  Three pairs of eyes turned on Angela. She had not been employed in television long enough to trade in integrity for ambition so, foolishly, she pursued her line of thought.

  ‘I mean, there has to be a reason why every newspaper is filled with lonely-hearts ads. And why does it feel as if there are more singles clubs than pubs in London now? Surely it must mean that everybody’s out there looking for Mr and Ms Right.’

  Imogen smiled coldly. ‘I’ve sold the idea to a commissioning editor, Angela, my darling, allegedly on the basis of a massive amount of prior research, for which that commissioning editor has already paid handsomely,’ she said. ‘So, if these women don’t exist, we’ll bloody well have to invent them. Won’t we? Now, let’s have a little creative licence around here, OK? Find me a woman.’

  It was then that Hilly Byrne made her second call to Will Evans. Within minutes, she was speaking on the phone to Fee.

  Stress as well as hunger always made Hilly talk too much. It did so now.

  ‘Will told me that not only did you fit the bill – being a spinster and all that – but that you’d be awfully articulate on the subject . . . He’s very impressed with you, because he said you’re so, well, together . . . and you don’t look too bad either . . . So visually, it works too . . . I mean we wouldn’t want to put on a dog because everybody would say she couldn’t get a man anyway. If you know what I mean . . . You haven’t been married, have you? Please God, you haven’t been married.’

  Hilly stopped, aware that honesty wasn’t the best form of seduction when it came to asking a woman to reveal her soul to (hopefully) at least 10 million viewers.

  Fee was appalled at her suggestion. And embarrassed. Embarrassed that Will should have told a stranger about her decision. Politely, Fee explained that while she was happy to be single, she definitely did not wish to advertise the fact on television.

  ‘I’ve made a personal choice,’ Fee said crisply. ‘Not launched a brand of toothpaste.’

  ‘My boss will kill me if you don’t say yes,’ Hilly said, opting for a woman-to-woman plea.

  ‘Sorry,’ Fee replied. ‘I’m not the kind of person you’re looking for. Really, I’m not.’

  Hilly was right about Imogen’s reaction.

  ‘You silly cow,’ Imogen bellowed, standing in the centre of the open-plan office. ‘And she’s a silly cow too. If she isn’t sure what she thinks on the subject, you bloody well tell her.’

  She kicked the plastic waste-paper basket hard, causing a shower of cold coffee from several half-empty paper cups to rain down on her skirt and legs. Hilly hid her smile.

  ‘Bugger,’ Imogen said, inspecting her mottled calves.

  She turned her attention back to Hilly.

  ‘Didn’t you tell her it’s only television, for God’s sake?’ she demanded. ‘Give me the woman’s number. I’ll get her to say yes. I wish some of these people wouldn’t take it all so personally. It’s not history they’re making, it’s entertainment. Pure bloody entertainment.’

  At 6 p.m., Imogen left the office and went home to change. She chose black slacks and a black cashmere polo neck with flat black loafers. She stripped herself of jewellery and removed a lot of eye make-up.

  Half an hour later, driving her white BMW, she made a call on her mobile phone. She had been looking forward to this all day. A woman’s voice answered.

  ‘Hello, is that Annabel Davidson?’ Imogen asked in her lowest, huskiest, sexiest voice.

  ‘Who is it?’ the woman replied.

  ‘I expect you think Nigel is working hard at the office, don’t you, Mrs Davidson?’ Imogen continued, her adrenalin racing so fast she found it difficult to breathe. How she loved these moments. Imogen sometimes wondered whether she engineered the premature end to all her relationships in order to enjoy this mischief at their demise.

  ‘Who is this?’ the woman asked again. In the background, Imogen could hear young children shrieking with delight and the sound of splashing water . . .

  The bathroom in which Nigel had so often locked himself to make his illicit calls to her.

  The phone clicked and whirred and the woman spoke again, this time from a room without any echoes of family life.

  ‘Are you his girlfriend?’ the woman asked in an even tone.

  Well, well. Wives today know far more than they’re given credit for, Imogen thought to herself, with some admiration.

  ‘No,’ she answered truthfully. ‘But I was. I just thought I’d do you a favour since you were kind enough to let me have the loan of your husba
nd. He isn’t with me any more, you know. But he has gone back to Jenni Templeton.’

  Imogen paused. There was silence on the end of the phone. She felt no pity. Any woman who allowed herself to become too vulnerable deserved all that she got.

  Imogen resumed speaking. ‘You didn’t know about Jenni? Well, Nigel must have been with her on and off for a couple of years, before me. Now, he’s gone back. That’s where he is now. The number is 0171 651 4367. Give him my regards.’

  Imogen had enjoyed Nigel for several months, but she’d found herself growing a touch too sentimental about him so it was just as well he’d decided to call it a day.

  Men, Imogen Banks thought to herself, as she pulled up outside the office of Fiona Travers, who’d be without them?

  ‘Men,’ Imogen Banks said, as she sat opposite Fee in her office at F.P. & D., ‘I mean, frankly, which woman in her right mind needs them? Of course, they’re very important to me as friends, even for the occasional romp in the hay, but in relationships . . . forget it. I’ve known ever since I was a little girl that marriage and me are as likely as The Lone Ranger falling for Tonto—’

  ‘The Lone Ranger . . .?’ Fee brightened.

  Imogen had arrived uninvited. Fee still had a couple of hours’ work to complete before she could allow herself to leave for home.

  ‘Do you know,’ Imogen leaned forward conspiratorially, ‘I’ve even been sterilized?’

  ‘I see,’ Fee said, unsure how she was supposed to respond. The woman sitting opposite was voluptuous but low key. She had an open, friendly face and expensive hair. Her hands, unlike the rest of her body, were small and delicate with manicured nails the colour of tomatoes.