Where Have All the Boys Gone?

by Jenny Colgan

  Katie rolled her eyes. ‘You are very very easy to tease, do you know that?’

  Harry flushed a little bit. ‘I didn’t want to come to your stupid radio thing anyway.’

  ‘Oh, you can if you like.’

  ‘No, no, you’re the PR professional. I’ll just stay here and get on with the grunt work, shall I?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Katie wickedly. ‘Now you’re getting it!’

  The studio in Inverness was smarter than Radio Ullapool, but not by much. The staff there, though, were a lot friendlier and more efficient, and the presenter was well-briefed and led her through the issues in a nice sharp manner. Katie, although feeling she acquitted herself well (and getting a nice feeling from thinking of everyone listening in at the Mermaid), was a bit disappointed at not being able to stir up much controversy (the ban on the word ‘arse’ wasn’t helping things). A few people called in and offered support, and a few golfers phoned in and complained about being victimised (as victimised as you can feel if you’re a fat middle-aged white man with lots of money and a Jaguar, thought Katie privately).

  And, too quickly, it was the last question.

  ‘So, Katie – one last sum up of why we should all support Fairlish?’

  Katie thought of her unhappy experience the previous night – and suddenly it all came flooding back to her. Someone as gorgeous as Iain should be out spreading his wild oats far and wide, not lying balled up embarrassed in bed. Harry shouldn’t be getting bloody flushed if anyone so much as made a little joke about love or sex. Louise shouldn’t be being followed around by half the men in the village like greyhounds after a rabbit, however much she appeared to be enjoying it.

  ‘Because there aren’t any women in Fairlish,’ she said suddenly. ‘There are only men – lovely men, really nice blokes – and there’s no women for them to um, have relations with, or marry, and the last thing they need right now is another few hundred men descending on them to play golf, which will only make the whole thing worse. So that’s why it needs to get sorted out, before all the men there go crazy from sexual frustration, and explode and die.’

  There was a silence in the studio. Then the lights of the telephones began to light up in a row, one by one.

  Louise was looking at her, concerned.

  ‘I’m a bit worried about what this is going to do for our popularity.’

  Katie rolled her eyes. She had dashed to the Mermaid – post the Radio Scotland interview, she had new, very exciting news.

  ‘Well, if they liked you in the first place, I’m sure it wouldn’t matter.’

  ‘I mean, what if all these girls start rolling up now?’

  ‘It’ll be nice – we’ll have someone else to talk to besides those little minxes keeping us away from baked goods.’

  ‘And that’s another thing. Think how much it’s going to annoy them. They’ll probably come around and firebomb the house.’

  ‘Oh yes, that was foremost in my mind. Louise, this is my job. And it’s working!’

  They’d bought pies, hastily, from the bakery, and were eating them in the Mermaid, early, so they could avoid everyone except Lachlan, who concentrated on giving Katie gigantic winks.

  ‘Is it? Have you got anyone interested?’

  Katie smiled in a secretive way, knowing it would drive her friend nuts.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to say.’

  ‘Does that mean nobody then?’

  Louise turned back to her pie. Katie was bursting. ‘Maybe not quite nobody.’

  ‘La la la,’ said Louise. ‘I wonder if I should head back to the bothy tonight? It’s quite exciting.’

  ‘OK, OK, I’ll tell you. It’s just, I’ve only just heard. I haven’t even told Harry yet.’

  Inside, Katie was so excited, she could hardly speak. She whispered in Louise’s ear.

  ‘Oh my God! Richard and Judy!’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘The one who keeps falling out of her top!’

  ‘You watch a lot of daytime television.’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Katie, very excited, ‘everyone who’s anyone goes on it. Bill Clinton. OJ Simpson. Peter Andre.’

  ‘You’re not serious.’

  ‘I am!!! They want me! And, um, a local man.’

  ‘You’re going to be on telly?’ said Louise.

  ‘National telly! Primetime!’

  ‘Five o’clock is primetime?’

  ‘YES,’ said Katie. ‘Anyway, why stop there…I could be on Good Morning…Newsnight…’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Louise, tucking in, ‘Newsnight are going to want you. And Mastermind. Do you think they’ll fly me down with you?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Katie. ‘You are involved in saving the men in this parish. One at a time.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Louise. ‘I wonder if London’s changed without us? OOH! Shiny lights! Topshop! Rocket salad!’

  ‘Coffee Republic! Double red lines!’

  ‘Pollution!’

  ‘Congestion Charge!’

  ‘Evening papers!’

  ‘Capital!’

  ‘Yay!’ they chimed together.

  ‘Oooh, BUT!’ Louise exclaimed dramatically, pointing her knife, ‘can you bear to leave the Hibernian vale of lurve?’

  ‘I don’t know what on earth you mean,’ said Katie sheepishly.

  ‘You dirty stop-out! You know exactly what I mean! I had to tell Mrs McClockerty you were still on the radio when you didn’t turn up!’

  Katie smiled and tried to look as though she wasn’t going to talk about it.

  ‘So, you banged our lovely Iain?’

  ‘Banged is such an unattractive word,’ said Katie.

  ‘Oh! You did!’

  Katie toyed with her food, suddenly having an unhappy memory of Iain rescuing her from the same meal. He’d seemed to like her a lot more then than he had this morning.

  ‘Well…’

  Louise sat back. ‘OK. Size, details, descriptions, the lot. You’ve got ten seconds to cough.’

  Katie felt awkward. ‘Well, it was our first time…’

  ‘Oh. That bad.’

  ‘No! Yes. Yes. It was terrible. Oh, Louise, I really really like him.’

  ‘Well, jump him again and make it better.’

  ‘I didn’t jump him the first time. And I’m not sure it’s that simple.’

  Louise looked perturbed. ‘Man, you like man, man has penis, you lick penis, man like you. Simple.’

  ‘You are such a Rules girl.’

  ‘I mean, was it insurmountably terrible, that the thought of having it off with him again fills you with nausea and inexplicable rage?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘And you like him, right?’

  ‘Oh yes. He’s cute and he has lovely eyes.’

  ‘Well then. You’ll just have to take a deep breath and get stuck in. It’s like puppy training.’

  Katie nodded. ‘It’s not that. You know, he hasn’t called all day. No call, no flowers, nothing. What if he doesn’t want to see me again?’

  ‘Of course he wants to see you again! It’s you or a sock in this town! Now, do you think Richard and Judy will fly us down first class?’

  ‘What do you mean, “they need a man”?’

  Harry was looking perturbed, but Katie thought she could detect a note of excitement underneath.

  ‘I spoke to the researcher today. She said I have to bring a man to talk about how there aren’t any women around, and make an appeal.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I’d want to do,’ said Harry.

  ‘It’s for a good cause – loads of women will come to the ball. You’ll be famous! It’ll be great! Just think about the greater good!’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone else?’

  Katie had considered this, and thought that while Iain would be brilliant on telly, it probably didn’t give him the right message that she wanted him to advertise for
other women, plus she wasn’t quite confident about taking him to London – her home. After all, what would it mean if they were travelling down to London together? And, of course, it would make Harry livid, which might have seemed a good idea a week ago, but she didn’t want to threaten their rapprochement now. Oh, and he still hadn’t called. She was starting to get an unpleasant suspicion over how long it was taking him to get in touch. She was less concerned, now, about teething troubles in the bedroom – all she could think of was his sweetness, how lovely he was to look at. She had a pretty bad case of the Iains in fact. She shook herself back to attention.

  ‘Well, Craig the Vet volunteered, but I don’t think he’s the kind of person we want – he looks like a farmer, and if you were a girl, you’d think he just wanted a hearty pair of hands to get up at four-thirty in the morning and milk the cows.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ said Harry.

  ‘You think that,’ said Katie. ‘And Lachlan, but…he’s a bit old.’

  ‘You mean, he’s a midget.’

  ‘He’s vertically challenged.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re the one using the poncey language, but you’re also the one not letting him be on television.’

  ‘I know,’ said Katie. ‘I feel bad about it. But what can I do? I’m a PR person and thus a bit shallow, you know, and stuff.’

  ‘And I’m shallow enough for you?’

  ‘Oh, come on. And nobody else can leave their animals, except for the technogeeks down at the research plant, and there’s plenty of them in London already and every time they get excited they start doing Lord of the Rings impersonations.’

  ‘So, by a process of elimination of every man in a seventy-mile radius, you got to me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can Francis come?’

  ‘No.’

  Harry sighed. ‘Oh well. I guess. I’ve never been to London before.’

  Katie’s eyes widened. ‘Exsqueeze me?’

  ‘I mean, I’ve been through Heathrow before. On my way to other places. Places I actually wanted to go to. But London…no, it’s just never come up.’

  Katie just stared at him.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve never been to London.’

  ‘Why not? It’s not the centre of the universe you know.’

  ‘Actually, it is, as it happens. That’s why the GMT line is there.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Harry, sounding unconvinced.

  ‘Oh my God. Well, we can show you London.’

  ‘I’ve seen EastEnders, thanks. I’ll probably do without.’

  ‘You big snot!’ said Katie. ‘You never know, you might love it.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  It is a completely irreversible law that states that if you are really looking forward to showing off about something – your town, a film you love or a great piece of music – it will undoubtedly appear in its worst possible light. The film suddenly won’t seem half so funny, or the person will get distracted halfway through the music and start talking about something else, or they’ll come to your town and it will piss down with rain and they’ll get mugged immediately.

  Harry hadn’t been mugged yet (that was more Katie’s arena), but, annoyingly, when they’d set off on the Monday morning (after a weekend completely Iain-free, not that Katie was frantically checking for his calls or anything), it had been an uncharacteristically glorious day in Fairlish. The sun had glinted off the hills and onto the shining sea, making the whitewashed buildings look clean and fresh, and the painted fishing boats jolly and homely.

  ‘I’m going to miss this,’ said Harry sadly.

  ‘You’re going away for three days,’ said Katie. ‘Nothing has changed here for a hundred years!’

  ‘You are joking?’

  ‘Um, why?’

  ‘Well, I mean, look at that tree over there. Notice anything about it?’

  Now she looked at it, with some irritation she noticed that whilst the previous week it had been in full pink blossom, now the ground beneath was carpeted with petals, and green shoots were crawling out of the twigs.

  ‘What about it?’ said Katie, purely to be annoying.

  ‘It’s got a new single out,’ said Harry sarcastically. ‘You have no soul. The land never stops changing if you bother to look.’

  ‘Ahh, it must be National Pomposity Week,’ said Katie.

  Then, to make matters worse, as they circled around Heathrow, the rain was coming down in sheets.

  ‘So this is the softy South is it?’ said Harry, clearly gearing himself up to a long session of remarks like that. Katie decided the best way to deal with it was to ignore him. Instead, she kept an eye on Louise, who was huddled into the window seat, with some concern. She hadn’t said a word during the journey, just stared out of the window, seeming more down with every passing mile. Katie hoped she wasn’t regretting coming with them. Although they hadn’t packed all of her stuff – Katie could bring it down in the car – there was a sense, unspoken between them, that her time in the Highlands was over. She had a job to get back to, a life to pick up the pieces of. It just wasn’t realistic to play at buxom country lass, as Olivia had repeatedly pointed out.

  Katie had had several more wittering emails from Clara, but had kept them from Louise. They were hardly going to help. She had sent back a noncommittal congratulations note, and reassured her mother on the phone that everything was just fine, that she knew Max very well (which was of course true) and that the hospitals in India were first-rate (or the one she’d pay to get Clara into would be, of that much she was determined).

  But that didn’t change the fact that Louise was coming back to a town full of ghosts, and it certainly looked bleak this morning.

  So, Katie was especially pleased to see a driver and a very petite blonde girl holding a sign up for them at the airport.

  ‘Hello!’ she said, introducing them all.

  ‘Wow, great to meet you!’ said the young girl reflexively. Katie guessed that she spent her life, unpaid, as a runner picking up people from airports and was doing her best, but Harry seemed completely charmed and fascinated.

  ‘So, you work in telly then?’ he asked. ‘Is it terribly exciting?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the girl, dully, whose name was Hortense, meaning she must be under twenty, as Katie could age the generation of Mauds, Stanleys and Hepzibahs by crazily retro names. ‘It’s incredibly exciting.’ She put a handful of change into the parking machine. ‘Sixth floor – the lift’s out, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Where are we staying?’ asked Katie. She hoped they got somewhere good, like a Marriott. She doubted they stretched to the Savoy.

  The girl gave her a bored look. ‘Well, he’s staying in the Thistle,’ she said. ‘We thought your PR company was London-based.’

  ‘Well, it is…’ said Katie. She’d planned on going home, of course, but had still secretly hoped there might be a bit of fluffy bathrobes and room service in between. It had been a while since fluffy bathrobes. Mind you, it had been a while since she’d had her own room, so she supposed she could thank heaven for small mercies.

  Louise was still staring out of the window. Katie touched her knee gently, but didn’t receive much of a response.

  ‘Ha ha ha,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve got a hotel.’

  ‘Yes, you’ll need it for all the groupies you get after the show,’ Katie retorted, which made him blush and cough immediately.

  ‘So, are you the siblings who want to carry their mother’s surrogate baby?’ asked Hortense in a bored voice.

  Harry and Katie looked at each other.

  ‘Are we?’ asked Harry.

  ‘No,’ said Katie. ‘He’s the man from the men-only village.’

  ‘You don’t look gay,’ said Hortense.

  Having been stop-starting through the traffic at three miles an hour, they stopped at yet another traffic light. Immediately, a woman carrying a baby started banging on their window asking for money. Hortense, the driver and Katie ignored her reflexively
. Harry looked at them in consternation.

  ‘The village where there aren’t any women living there,’ prodded Katie. ‘Where they’re trying to save the trees!’

  ‘Oh yes!’ said the girl. She looked more closely at Harry. ‘Is that true? There are no girls?’

  ‘Not many,’ said Harry, going red again. ‘Mostly lads work around there.’

  ‘Gosh!’ said Hortense. ‘Well, there are NO men here. Are they all single and stuff?’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘Wow. Are there many TV shows produced there?’

  ‘Not many, no.’

  ‘Shame,’ said the girl. Then she looked at him again, with a slightly hungry expression that Katie found annoying for some reason. Eyeing Harry objectively, she supposed girls might go for that fit healthy black-haired sulky look – heck, she might have herself a few months ago. Before she got to know him of course. And met Iain…

  ‘So, it’s just full of horny farmer types?’

  ‘Actually, we’re on the show to talk about stopping a golf course,’ said Katie officiously. ‘Have you got the brief?’ And she handed over a booklet she’d spent some considerable time putting together, full of facts and information on the local wildlife, the environmental damage caused by a flurry of new building, and the superfluity of golfing in the area.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hortense, handing over her call sheet. Under ‘Heathrow Airport Pick-up’ it just said ‘The Town With No Totty’, and their names.

  The flat looked weird, in the way that any place not lived in for any length of time seems peculiar. Mail, all bills and junk, was piled up on the floor. There was one lonely sausage in the fridge. The place smelled a little damp, and hadn’t got any bigger whilst they’d been away. In fact, if anything, it was worse. Mrs McClockerty might not exactly run the Ritz, but it was still a huge house, with views all the way to the horizon. Whereas here, from the kitchen window, Katie could practically touch the neighbour’s bottle of Fairy. There was no horizon at all. Why had she never noticed that before?

  ‘Come on!’ she shouted to Louise. ‘We’re going out.’

  Louise, who was wandering around not doing anything, nodded. They were going to meet Olivia at Chi, a cocktail bar so new and trendy that it was getting them excited about paying twelve quid for two centimetres of liquid with an olive in it, which would then make them cough, and, about two seconds later, fall off their stools. Katie would have secretly preferred a quiet wine bar, but couldn’t face missing out on this – Olivia had got them on the guest list, it was meant to be packed full of celebrities and was exactly what a smart girl about town like herself ought to be doing in this day and age, for goodness’ sake, not making cow eyes at local newspaper boys.