‘Gill hasn’t said and it doesn’t seem right to ask, not while she’s still upset,’ Fee replied. The twin still in the water put his arms around her neck and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
‘Got you!’ he shouted happily. Fee kissed his tummy. ‘Got you too,’ she chuckled.
Will watched, smiling. ‘You can see why some people do it, can’t you?’ he said, lifting the second boy out of the bath and standing him next to his brother on the mat.
‘Do what?’ Fee asked, pulling the plug and rescuing various bottles of cream and exfoliants and anti-wrinkle miracle cures which the boys had tossed into the water.
‘Kids,’ Will replied, breathless, wrestling the twins to the ground. ‘You can see why people have kids.’
‘Listen,’ Fee reminded him, ‘you’re the man who broke his ex-wife’s heart by refusing to have any. So what’s made you change your mind?’
‘Old age,’ Will Evans replied. ‘I’m beginning to feel I’ve done the no-dependants bit. After all, there’s only so many table tops you can dance on, before it begins to be repetitious.’
By eleven, the children and Gill slept while Fee sat at the kitchen table and Will made coffee.
‘I’ve got it,’ he announced as he handed her a cup. Fee glanced at him and found herself feeling unexpectedly sentimental. Will was always there when help was required.
‘What about Veronica?’ Will suggested. ‘She can give you a hand. You don’t want your mother, Gill has forbidden you to tell any of your other friends, so why not Veronica? She’s desperate to do something. In fact, you’d probably be doing her a favour. She’d love it.’
Fee shook her head. ‘She couldn’t possibly. She’s not up to it. What if she thought she’d killed off someone when she was here on her own with the twins or Percy?’
Will was undeterred. ‘Gill will be here . . . When does Veronica get back from holiday?’
Fee looked at her watch to check the date. ‘I’m not sure. She may be back now for all I know. Les has been very protective.’
‘Perfect!’ Will was rubbing his hands together. ‘And what about that woman, Rita? Couldn’t she help out too?’
Fee groaned. It had been four days since she had told Rita Mason that she was going away for a very long time. So far, there had been no word from the woman. No word, no telephone messages, no gifts, no unexpected visits . . .
Will was speaking again. ‘Didn’t Rita and Veronica get on very well when they were locked in the lavatory?’
Fee smiled. ‘They weren’t locked in together. Rita Mason works as a radiographer at the hospital and she rescued Veronica—’
‘Well, now it’s Veronica’s turn to rescue you,’ Will announced.
‘Les won’t allow it,’ Fee responded.
‘Now, what kind of an excuse is that?’ Will asked.
An hour later, just before midnight, Veronica was on the doorstep with an overnight bag.
Fee was surprised to see her. She had phoned and left a message on the answering machine. Five minutes later, Veronica had called back, whispering into the receiver. She and Les had returned from holiday the day before. Les was now asleep. And no, Veronica hadn’t received any of her sister’s messages in Jersey.
‘I thought you’d forgotten me,’ Veronica said lightly.
Fee explained the situation. Asked several times if her sister felt up to it. And was still asking when her sister said goodbye.
Veronica wrote a note for her husband, called a cab and was soon helping Will to make up the sofa bed in the spare bedroom, already occupied by the twins.
Fee came into the room to find Veronica kneeling on the carpet, weak with laughter, out-foxed by its mechanics. Will was nursing three fingers, freshly jammed in the springs.
‘Your sister’s trying to kill me,’ he complained. Veronica found that even funnier.
A little later, Fee joined Will in the kitchen, bringing with her Ivo, who had woken and refused to go back to sleep. Will offered to make him a cup of hot chocolate.
‘I’ve left the details there,’ Will said casually to Fee.
‘What details?’ she asked.
‘Didn’t you hear the phone go? It was Rita Mason. She said to tell you to meet her at seven fifteen at Floods wine bar in Waterloo Station. She said she’s got something very exciting to tell you but it will have to be a quick drink because she’s meeting a friend off the eight thirty-five. Look, I’ve written it all down.’
Fee took the note. ‘God, she’s got a nerve . . . I don’t want to see her. I told her I couldn’t. Where’s her number? I’ll phone and tell her I’m busy—’
‘She didn’t leave a number,’ Will said. ‘I thought you’d have it.’
‘The woman never leaves her bloody number. I’ll have to phone her at work,’ Fee said, reaching for the phone book.
Will looked sheepish. ‘She mentioned that she’s taken a couple of weeks off . . . she’s busy with family or something—’
‘What family?’ Fee replied, exasperated. ‘She told Veronica she didn’t have any. I told you there was something odd about her.’
‘You’ll just have to do what I do in difficult circumstances, and which you swore you would never stoop to,’ Will suggested smugly, enjoying the irony.
‘What’s that?’ Fee asked.
‘You’ll have to stand Ms Mason up,’ Will smiled. ‘Then hope to God she’s not the sort who goes in for bloody revenge.’
Chapter Twenty
AT ONE A.M., Fee turned off the lamp by the sofa, leaving the flat in darkness. She was trying to make herself comfortable when she heard a small tap, more like a scratch, at her front door. It was followed by another tentative scratch, then silence.
She was certain it couldn’t be Rita Mason, she’d already left her trail of demands for the day. Fee rose, opened the door and peered into the dimly lit hall. She could see nothing. A tiny sound came from somewhere near her feet.
Shona Spannier was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, huddled almost into a ball. She glanced upwards at Fee and then hid her face on her knees. Fee bent to help her up. Only then did she see that Shona had a badly split lip while the whole of one side of her face was the puce and purple of a damaged damson.
‘I’m so sorry—’ Shona wept quietly. ‘It’s all my fault.’
Shona Spannier sat on the sofa, holding a mug of coffee between cupped hands as Fee searched for her favourite cardigan – thick and old and comforting. She failed to find it, so Fee draped her dressing-gown around Shona’s shoulders. The rest of the household slept on.
‘What happened?’ Fee asked. ‘Was it Edward?’
‘No.’ Shona shook her head vigorously.
‘Are you sure?’ Fee asked again gently.
Shona put the mug of coffee down and grief distorted her face.
‘He wants the boys to leave school,’ she burst out. ‘That’s how it started. It’s taken so long for them to get used to it. Now Teddy wants them to leave and go to day school. Just when they’ve made friends, just when they’re both beginning to have fun . . . Of course I want them home with me, but above all I want them to feel secure.’
‘Is it the cost?’ Fee asked.
Shona gave a brittle laugh. ‘Oh God, no. He makes loads of money. Or he says he does. He wants to move them because he doesn’t think it suits his image. He’s trying to get selected, did I tell you? He doesn’t think it’s on as a Labour MP to have two sons in public school—’
Shona wiped a stray tear that had tracked its way down her bruised cheek.
‘Perhaps he’s right. I get so confused . . . Most times I go along with what Teddy says. He can be quite forceful, you know . . . but this time I said I thought it was wrong . . . Then Teddy said I was being typically inconsistent. One minute I don’t want them to go, the next, I’m saying they shouldn’t leave—’
‘It’s true. I am inconsistent, but I just want the boys to feel settled—’
Shona gazed at Fee, her eyes
welling with tears again. ‘And—’ Fee gently encouraged.
‘Suddenly, Teddy lost his temper. I was sitting on our bed, he was standing by the door. He ran at me and gave me such a punch, I was knocked sidewards off the bed. He wouldn’t stop kicking me. I covered my head with my hands . . . but he wouldn’t stop . . . Then he grabbed me by the hair and threw me back on the bed and the back of my head hit the bedside table.
‘Over and over he kept saying, “Look what you make me do . . . look what you drive me to . . .” And then he just banged out of the flat . . . I thought you’d heard . . . I thought the whole street had heard—’
Shona placed both her hands flat on the kitchen table. They were blotched and bruised and cut where she had tried to protect her head from the kicking. A trickle of blood dripped onto the collar of Fee’s dressing gown.
Words deserted Fee. If this had happened to her, she would find comfort in the sound of horses’ hoofs, the smell of gunfire and leather. She could pretend to herself that she would ride to her own rescue. And teach the culprit a lesson he would never forget. But this wasn’t her life, it was Shona’s – and Fee found it difficult to understand why the woman was being so apologetic – as if she deserved the beating she had been given.
‘He’s right. Teddy’s right,’ Shona was saying, now more calm. ‘I do drive him to it. He says he’s never hit any other woman before me. It’s all my fault. Oh, Fee. I don’t want him to leave me. I want to make this marriage work, I really do.’
Later, Shona refused the offer of a bed for fear that Edward might return, make a scene, and frighten Gill’s children.
‘Let me call Will upstairs,’ Fee offered. ‘He’ll put you up for the night.’
Shona looked horrified. ‘You are not to tell anyone else what’s happened. Nobody,’ she insisted, her face whitening with anxiety, in spite of the bruises. ‘Promise me you won’t tell a soul. Nobody. Absolutely nobody?’ Shona repeated firmly.
Fee sidestepped the promise. ‘But how will you get help? How often has he done this, Shona?’
Shona backed away, as if in retreat from the truth.
‘Not much. Just a few times, perhaps once or twice. Look, thank you for listening. I’m really sorry I woke you up. I’ll be fine now. Really, I will—’ She stumbled over her words.
She had slipped out of Fee’s door and into her flat before Fee had time to react.
At eight the next morning, Fee knocked on Shona’s door. She refused to answer. Fee then left a neutral message on her answering machine, since she also failed to answer the phone. ‘Veronica or I will be at home all day if you need anything.’
‘She’s embarrassed,’ Veronica said when Fee told her about the previous night’s events.
‘She’s embarrassed and she feels ashamed.’
‘But why?’ Fee asked. ‘It’s not her fault.’
‘No, but she believes it is.’
Two hours later, Fee Travers was sitting in a luxurious office decorated in pastel pink and dove grey, acting the part of a difficult customer. Given the circumstances, she was finding it easy.
The woman opposite her was encouraging Fee to construct the man of her dreams – in the hope that the highly advanced, first of its kind, HAH! computer, a service known as Inter-Act, might deliver a near approximation – a Mr Almost Right.
Two packets of cigarettes were stacked next to a sign that read Angie Baxter (BA Hons).
Angie Baxter was in her late twenties. Her make-up was of the painting-by-numbers variety. Peachy brown on the cheeks; chestnut eyebrow pencil, beige eye shadow; the lips had been given a very dark maroon outline, filled in with a paler pink colour so that the mouth resembled a guava cut in two.
She was dressed in a brown suit, a dazzlingly white top and several amber necklaces. The perfume was very noticeable – perhaps rose- or jasmin-based – as were the blonde highlights in her brown hair.
Ms Baxter was baffled as to why Fee Travers had found it necessary to sit with an uncompleted application form in front of her for forty-five minutes.
She had never witnessed anyone so confounded by the simple act of selecting the qualities you desired most in an ideal partner. Didn’t the woman daydream, for God’s sake?
‘For each question, there are three boxes,’ Ms Baxter tried again. ‘All you have to do is tick the appropriate one. Let’s start with something easy. Would you like a man who is very interested in politics, not interested or mildly interested?’
‘It depends,’ Fee replied honestly.
‘Yes, well,’ Angie Baxter answered, now slightly testy. ‘We don’t have a box for “It depends.” People who aren’t prepared to be a bit more black and white can’t really complain about who they end up with – can they? And it’s your money, dear.’
Fee had just written out a cheque for £750 for her introduction to the service plus £250 for six months’ access to as many suitable candidates as the computer could dredge up.
‘How about this?’ Angie Baxter tried again.
‘Would you like a man who is earning £20,000 and over; £40,000 and over or £60,000 plus?’
‘It’s difficult to say really, isn’t it?’ Fee responded chattily.
‘Oh dear,’ Angie Baxter said. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear—’
Fee attempted to explain herself better. ‘Look, what the man earns is less relevant to me than, say, how he treats the children of his former marriage. Or whether he has a propensity to domestic violence.’
Ms Baxter, slumped in defeat, sat bolt upright in alarm. ‘Good God,’ she said. ‘We wouldn’t dream of dipping into the nastier side of life . . . That’s something you’d have to sort out between the two of you, much further down the line. This is about romance, after all—’
Fee improvised. ‘All right then, I’d quite fancy someone who earns over £20,000 and who has a strong concern for the future of the planet.’
Angie Baxter paled. She had once had a job as a driving-test examiner. She had changed careers because the stress had proved too much. Perhaps brokering love was also beginning to prove too taxing?
She gave Fee a brittle smile. ‘Oh God, darling,’ she said. ‘If you’re a greenie, you should have said so from the start.’ Relief mixed with contempt had entered the woman’s voice. So that’s why this client had been so contrary.
She began to enthuse, anxious to remove Ms Travers from her records, from her sight, from her memory.
‘Organizations exist especially for you torn types. I’m told it’s quite fun. Lots of lentil love-ins, if you get my drift . . . I’m sure you’ll find Mr Right there. Or perhaps I should say, Mr Green—’ Angie Baxter enjoyed her little joke.
‘No,’ Fee announced firmly, picking up the pen. ‘I’ll stick with what you’ve got on offer. Now, do I want someone who reads one to two books a week, several books a week or—’
She looked up at the woman who was now beginning to chew at one of her perfectly manicured fingers.
‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,’ the woman muttered, spitting out bits of broken nail.
At work an hour later, Fee attempted to delegate. She was scheduled to attend ‘Get Going!’ at 6 p.m. GG! was yet another sub-division of HAH!. It organized a range of events, across London, for unattached men and women. The events included dinners, nightclub evenings, walks, parachute jumping, motor rallies, weekends away, discos and wine tastings. The cut-off age was forty-five. In order to gain access to events, the member had to carry a copy of GG!’s magazine, issued monthly by post.
Once a week, a recruitment drive was held in a London hotel. In vain did Fee attempt to persuade half-a-dozen colleagues to take her place. All refused on the grounds of pride.
‘Jeez, Fee, what if someone saw me going in there?’ Trish Castle protested. ‘I’d die—’
Get Going!’s recruitment evening was held in a large rambling hotel near Liverpool Street station. The exterior of the hotel had been modernized with a facelift of glass and marble. The inside still had corridors
wide enough for a coach and horses and a permanent smell of boiled cabbage.
Fee walked in at 5.55 p.m., briefcase in hand, looking purposeful, as if she was heading for a business meeting. She reassured herself that nobody but nobody would assume she was a Get Going! candidate.
‘Want the singles do, miss?’ said a porter helpfully, almost immediately. ‘Third floor, take a left and a right. It’s the Duke of York Suite.’
Five minutes later, she entered a large ornate room. Five rows of chairs were arranged to face a table, stacked with magazines and Polaroids of groups of people having ‘A Good Time’ in a range of activities.
Fee’s first glance around the other potential recruits left her surprised. Ages ranged from late twenties to a woman well into her fifties; two men and half-a-dozen women. An observer might have judged that when it came to finding a partner, most had the necessary assets and, one or two, a bit more besides.
A woman of indeterminate age with a large bosom, a pleasant unmade-up face and glossy brown hair, walked to the front of the group, and held up her hands for silence. A name tag on her chest said she was called Sandra.
‘Hello, everyone,’ she smiled. ‘My name is Sandra. I’m a dentist, I’ve been a member of Get Going! for five years. And in that time, I’ve certainly got going.’ She paused for laughter that never materialized. ‘And there’s nothing to stop you doing the same,’ she added brightly.
‘Look at me,’ Sandra suggested. ‘I’m tonight’s volunteer recruitment officer. I look pretty normal, don’t I? I’m a member of GG! not just because I want to meet someone special but because I want to do things! I’m sure you’re probably a lot of doers too—’ Sandra directed her gaze at Fee. Fee decided to inspect her feet, as did almost every other person in the room. Why should this seem so embarrassing?
Sandra redoubled her efforts. ‘Whatever you do, ladies and gentlemen,’ she beamed. ‘Whatever you do, please don’t feel defeated just because you’re here.’
If the thought hadn’t entered the heads of those in the room before, it now hung over them, heavy and oppressive like a monsoon sky.
‘Well done, Sandra,’ Fee murmured to herself.
The Trouble with Single Women Page 23