The Trouble with Single Women Read online

  Gill had always found Fee unsettling.

  ‘You lack direction,’ Gill would instruct her friend sternly. ‘Decide what you want and go for it.’

  ‘Why?’ Fee would ask mildly. ‘Why not let things happen?’

  ‘Because it will all pass you by,’ Gill would say. And that’s exactly what had occurred, Gill told herself with some satisfaction.

  Fee had a good job, a car, probably a bit in the bank, but she didn’t have A. N. Other. Or children. Or family life. She wasn’t wanted.

  When Fee, Gill and Claire had first met, Fee, then a teacher, was the drifter. Claire was a junior headhunter who fully expected that, at some point, she would take delivery of a husband, two children, a (preferably dead) mother-in-law, a Volvo, a comfortable house, a pension and a couple of labradors.

  Gill, in contrast, neither drifted nor placed her faith in fate handing out the right cards. She plotted.

  At twenty-one, Gill had a blueprint. She had a rolling five-year plan for life.

  On cue, at twenty-two, she became a junior tax adviser to a chain of banks. At twenty-three, she bought her own flat and Claire and Fee became her lodgers. At twenty-four, she met Simon and, at twenty-five, she married him. He was an architect who was five years older.

  At thirty, right on schedule, Persephone arrived. A boy was again due at thirty-three, but twins, Ivo and Euan, arrived 3 years later, the only hiccough in her plan so far. Now, at thirty-nine, Gill was aware that something she had never experienced in her life before had begun to trouble her. Gill was having Doubts.

  Doubts, for instance, about Simon. Had she married the wrong man? She’d spotted him as a high-flyer but recently there’d been a couple of alarming crash landings, workwise.

  Gill had doubts too about the wisdom of having children. Or, to put it more bluntly, Gill wondered how she had managed to produce offspring with whom she had so little in common?

  People had trial marriages these days: why, for God’s sake, couldn’t they have trial children? She would have returned her three within the first fourteen days.

  Gill had assumed that she would ‘do’ full-time motherhood as efficiently as she had tackled her career. So why this incandescent almost uncontrollable rage whenever she encountered a childfree woman?

  She didn’t resent men at all, with or without children; but women without children, well it was just so unfair . . . Nobody had prepared her for quite how unfair. They didn’t know what it was like to face the sleepless nights, the demands on times, the agony of constrained ambitions and a dying social life.

  ‘Mummy—’ Persephone yelled from upstairs, ‘Muuuuuuummy—’

  ‘Simon,’ Gill said tartly. ‘Percy wants you—’

  ‘Like a hand, dear?’ Simon asked mildly as he returned to the table a few minutes later. Gill was dunking the soup ladle into the tureen with all the force of a lifeboat hitting the sea in a Force Eight gale. Simon wiped a few drops of soup from his face.

  ‘Of course I want a hand,’ Gill responded waspishly. ‘I need several bloody hands.’

  Gill realized her guests were inspecting her with voyeuristic interest – could this be the making of a marital row? So she quickly added, for their reassurance, ‘Ha, ha, ha.’

  Gill glanced at Fee. She had dark brown hair, cut in a bob and shining. Well, it ought to shine. Fee could wash it seven times a day if she so chose. Gill’s hair never shone – not since the birth of the twins.

  Fee was slimmish. She had an olive complexion, almond eyes and no broken veins. Gill had two which left a thin red trace along the side of her nose, a baby’s autograph – the scars of a marathon first labour.

  When Gill and Fee were in their twenties, Gill had always said that Fee failed to make the most of herself. She wore little make-up, preferred jeans and hated jewellery.

  Fee still believed less was best and Gill had to concede that it gave her a clean, uncluttered look. Gill, in contrast, had always regarded herself as ‘an accessories person’. Now she felt more like a jumble sale waiting to happen. Fee wasn’t drop-dead stunning, but, Gill conceded generously, you could watch her without wincing.

  ‘Still,’ she reminded herself, savagely splashing soup down the front of her long, flowing, purple and black, Monsoon dress, bought for her second pregnancy.

  ‘I am the fortunate one—’

  Tonight, in addition to Philip Cross and Fee, Gill and Simon had invited Adrian and Moira Padstow. Adrian was a vet with his own practice. He had always dreamt that he would limit his family to two children, so he could retire early and live on a mountaintop in Spain. Once Moira had discovered she was, in her opinion, a natural mother, the family had stopped only at her fifth pregnancy.

  Moira was now into phrase two of her life. After being ‘a vocational wife’ for far too long, she was into space.

  ‘Space for aerobics, massage, facials, walking in Tibet, that kind of thing—’

  Her husband, overflowing from his chair with exhaustion and self-neglect, rubbed his eyes as if in weary disbelief that he had managed to ensnare himself in such marital feudalism: he slaved, while his wife flowered.

  ‘I don’t suppose you bother to cook much, do you?’ Moira addressed herself to Fee. ‘I mean, who bothers if they’re on their own?’

  The woman’s speckled salt ’n’ pepper hair, cut very short, stuck up like a cockatoo’s crest. She wore a long black Lycra dress and so many silver bangles on each arm that each time she gesticulated it sounded as if the cutlery drawer had been thrown across the room.

  ‘Me, I’d be hopeless living alone, far too neurotic,’ Moira gave a little shudder. ‘Don’t get me wrong, being in a couple isn’t easy. We certainly have our ups and downs. Don’t we, Adrian?’

  Her husband raised his eyebrows in a neutral response.

  Moira continued, assuming affirmation. ‘We have our ups and downs but at least we do it à deux. Life matters so much more when you’re one of a pair . . . together—’

  She elongated the word as if to cover her entire marriage in protective tarpaulin. ‘I think I’m just one of those people God never intended to be single,’ she added smugly.

  Fee was not unfamiliar with this line of conversation. She’d heard it from her mother, Helen, for decades. Helen believed that marriage meant the end of a woman’s hopes, health and happiness. But for a woman not to be married was infinitely worse.

  ‘We compromise a great deal. I mean, what marriage isn’t based on compromise? Isn’t that right, Adrian?’ Moira clanged as she waved her right arm in the direction of her husband.

  ‘If you say so, darling,’ Adrian wiped his eye – a tear? Or a drop of soup?

  Moira beamed at Fee. ‘Don’t you ever worry about becoming just a tad selfish, set in your ways, you know the kind of thing I mean?’ she asked. ‘And what about children?’

  ‘Cow,’ Fee thought. ‘Why don’t I tell her I had to have a hysterectomy at twenty and then see how she sweats her way out of that?’

  Moira pressed on. ‘Everybody wants children. They can be horrible little blighters but they make one’s life. Don’t they, Adrian, Philip, Simon . . . Gill?’

  Moira looked around the table. Gill was missing. Having despatched Simon to the kitchen for more wine, she had reluctantly left the table to deal with Percy upstairs.

  ‘I mean, otherwise what’s it all for . . .?’ Moira looked around again for confirmation. ‘And I expect you’ve got that biological clock ticking merrily away, eh?’ She leaned across the table and patted Fee’s hand; barbed wire disguised as comfort.

  ‘No, there’s nothing quite like a strong union of two,’ Moira pronounced, as Gill returned to the table. ‘Don’t you think so, Gill?’

  Gill smiled absent-mindedly by way of reply and shouted over her shoulder in the direction of the kitchen, ‘Simon, I asked you to open another bottle of wine, not drink the bloody thing out there—’

  Then, just in case her guests might acquire the wrong idea, she added, ‘Darling.’
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br />   ‘I mean it takes years to build up harmony and understanding,’ Moira was now addressing Philip. He ignored her and stared intently into his soup bowl filled with transparent beige liquid.

  Moira raised her voice several decibels. ‘What I say is, if—’

  Her words were interrupted by Philip Cross jiggling excitedly on his chair and waving his soup spoon triumphantly in the air.

  ‘I’ve got it! I’ve got it! I know what it is,’ he almost shouted. ‘It’s onion, isn’t it? I’m damn sure it’s onion . . . See, there’s a bit . . .’

  Gill stared at Philip nonplussed. Was he trying to be funny? Or plain rude? This was always a problem when you invited unknowns to your table: you never knew how they should be read. Unexpectedly, something large and juicy within Gill suddenly burst.

  She leapt up from the table and pointed an accusing finger at her husband.

  ‘You told me he liked soup,’ she barked. ‘You didn’t ask him, did you? Christ, it’s not too much to ask is it? All you had to say was, “Philip, how do you feel about soup?”’

  ‘More to the point, “how do you feel about onion bloody soup?” ’

  ‘Well?’ Gill bellowed at Simon while the rest of the group fell silent. ‘Did you ask him? Well . . .?’

  Each guest turned simultaneously to observe their host.

  ‘God, Gill,’ Simon Booth said quietly. ‘Give me a break.’

  Philip broke the tension.

  ‘So you lot feel fulfilled, do you?’ he queried, looking amiably around the table as Gill began to slam empty soup bowls together.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ he added mildly. ‘I lived with someone for seventeen years and for much of the time, I felt stifled, irritated, trapped, depressed, frustrated, put down, ignored, taken for granted, cuckolded, but I don’t recall being fulfilled. No, that must have passed me by.’

  Adrian smiled broadly. Moira’s bangles jingled a small protest.

  ‘I agree with Philip,’ Fee found herself saying. ‘I used to live with someone too – and it was quite nice a lot of the time . . . but I don’t think I felt fulfilled either. If anything, when I was with Bill, I sort of felt . . . half there . . . if you know what I mean?’

  Fee turned to Philip, who was nodding his head vigorously in agreement.

  Triumph swept over Gill’s face. She beamed at them both, her previous mood forgotten.

  ‘So you two do have something in common, after all,’ she said, smiling broadly. ‘See, what did I tell you, Simon? I knew Philip and Fee would find a little spark—’

  The evening ended early. Fee made the first move, followed by Philip. As they both waited for their coats in the hall, he suggested casually, ‘Why don’t I take your number?’

  Automatically, Fee began to rummage for a pen in her bag and then stopped. She didn’t have to do this any more.

  No more waiting; waiting for a man to extend the first invitation; waiting for Mr Right to appear; waiting for life to suddenly change gear; waiting for the promised phone call; forcing herself to give no-hopers, the six-out-of-ten men, the benefit of the doubt. No more waiting.

  In terms of compatibility, Philip was, in truth, probably a two-out-of-ten man. But now it no longer mattered. She didn’t have to bother.

  ‘Take my number? I don’t think so,’ Fee smiled sweetly. ‘I’m thinking of starting afresh. A new beginning – well, kind of a new beginning.’

  ‘Emigrating? You’re not joining the great exodus to South Africa, are you? Everyone’s going there now it’s kosher.’ For the first time, Philip appeared genuinely interested.

  ‘A new beginning . . .?’ Gill let out a shriek and wrapped her arms around Fee.

  ‘Ooooh, Fee! Why didn’t you say? It’s Adam, isn’t it? He’s proposed. Oh how marvellous!’ Gill pushed Fee back into the sitting room.

  ‘Did you hear that, Simon? Oh, Fee, you should have said. Well, it’s taken you long enough – but welcome to the club. Oh, I’m so relieved . . . for you, I mean.’

  ‘What did I always tell you, Simon? I always said Fee would settle down one day, didn’t I? At heart, she’s just an old-fashioned girl. Nothing wrong in that, eh? Well done, Fee.’ Gill was dribbling in her enthusiasm. ‘Sooner or later, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, isn’t that right, everybody?’

  Fee stared at the semi-circle of expectant faces, hitched for too long to hijacked hopes. Then, very faintly, she heard the distant thunder of hoofs.

  ‘You’re right, Gill,’ Fee smiled. ‘A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.’

  Chapter Two

  FEE STOPPED outside Adam’s unlit terraced house.

  She hadn’t intended to make this detour but, after leaving Gill’s and Simon’s, she’d decided that starting afresh can go stale if delayed too long. And the poor man deserved an answer.

  A second car, a pale lemon MG, was parked next to Adam’s BMW in the drive. It had an immaculate interior; no sweet papers, parking tickets, money-off coupons, empty Coke cans, old newspapers or broken umbrellas. It did have two matching white teddies, one with a pink bow, one with a blue bow, sitting in the rear window.

  ‘Now, this is more his type,’ Fee thought. Then she recalled that Adam had told her that his cousin was coming for a couple of days.

  If she rang the doorbell, Fee knew she would be expected to stay. She ripped a piece of paper out of her address book, wrote a short note and dropped it through the door.

  ‘Well, that’s all straightened out as tidily as Adam would like,’ Fee told herself as she drove off. ‘And not much self-inflicted harm done. For once.’

  At 5 a.m., Fee was woken by the slamming of doors, running feet and the sound of breaking glass.

  She went into the sitting room and opened the French windows which led on to the balcony of her second-floor flat. The flat was one of five in a large, converted, Victorian nursing home. The street below was deserted.

  A spider’s web of fractured glass filled the windscreen of her Fiat. The right wing blistered and bubbled, the paint peeling away like some grotesque half-completed facial.

  Adam?

  ‘God,’ she said to herself. ‘Perhaps he’s more interesting than I realized. Come to that, perhaps I’m more interesting than I realized.’

  Then she thought again. Adam saw passion as European and highly suspicious. It couldn’t be him.

  His former girlfriend? Gill paranoid, as ever, about Simon? The cousin in the lemon MG?

  ‘Fee? Fee? Are you in there, Fee?’

  Someone was banging on the door and Fee recognized the voice. Will Evans lived in the flat above hers.

  She and Will had met when they were both teaching. Will later moved into advertising and married. He and his wife, Lucy, had split up two years ago when both were thirty-six because she had wanted children and Will emphatically didn’t.

  Fee had helped him to get a job in the company for whom she worked. He, in turn, had suggested to her that she look at the flat below his when it became vacant just after she split up with Bill. Now, when both were without partners, they’d spend time together platonically.

  Except that Will was rarely without a partner. Having experienced years as part of a monogamous couple, he was now a born-again boyfriend, changing women with increasing rapidity.

  ‘Fee?’ Will asked again, as if he was in doubt that it was really her. He was standing at the door, barefoot, in his dressing-gown and looking seriously disturbed. His normal demeanour was relaxed. So much so that some mistook his casualness for superficiality. Fee liked to believe she knew better.

  Will had a long, red, livid graze down one side of his face. In his hands was an empty can of something that smelt strongly of acid.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he apologized.

  ‘Touching up your scratches?’ Fee enquired, indicating the can.

  Even as she spoke, a figure in a long dark coat charged up the stairs behind Will. Screaming, it leapt on his back. Will toppled forward, felling heavily on Fee. Three b
odies, entwined in a shambolic human knot toppled into her hall.

  Will and the figure disentangled themselves but Fee lay winded. As she did so, she observed a disturbing sight. Her giant copper urn, allegedly once employed by Tibetans to hold the ashes of the dead, but now used as a door stop, had begun to wobble.

  Now, Fee watched, unable to move, as the urn gracefully, gradually, descended upon her head.

  An hour later, Fee came to. She was lying on her sitting-room sofa. Will was by her side, his face now decorated with a second, deeper scratch. She had a phenomenal headache and a cold flannel on her forehead.

  ‘I know now what they mean by hard-urn’d sleep,’ she smiled feebly.

  ‘What can I say?’ Will shrugged his shoulders. He often affected an ‘I can never quite get the hang of this Life thing’ attitude, which added to his appeal for some women.

  ‘You can say, “I’ll make you a cup of tea, Fee, and pay for the car, Fee, and promise not to play leapfrog with my girlfriends in your hall again, Fee. And I’ll take that bloody urn away, Fee.” That would do for a start.’

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ he replied.

  Fee tried to raise one eyebrow. It was a surprisingly painful exercise.

  ‘She’s somebody I once knew—’ he added. ‘Well, at least now she’s somebody I once knew—’

  ‘Yeh, yeh—’ she waved his excuses away – not for the first time.

  Later, Fee sat at the table, while Will made tea and toast in her kitchen. He was tall and thin with short, curly black hair, bony wrists and beautiful hands. Even in his dotage he would probably look like an overgrown schoolboy. Friends found him attractive, but to Fee he had been part of her life for so long he was just Will.

  Ironically, now he worked with her, they saw less of each other. Fee had been at F. P. & Daughters for two years. It specialized in identifying future consumer trends and conceiving new products.

  The F. P. stood for ‘Future Perfect’, the ‘& Daughters’ was a marketing ploy, a tribute to the commpany’s conviction that ‘The Future is Female’ – although, in the here and now, apart from Fee and her younger colleague, Diana Woods, females didn’t figure at all at a senior level at F.P. & D.