The Trouble with Single Women

by Yvonne Roberts

  Fee recalled the envelope she had picked up outside his hotel room a few weeks ago.

  ‘Why don’t you come to supper at my place?’ Fee suggested. ‘Come tonight. About seven thirty?’

  ‘You won’t regret it,’ Paul Denning said.

  At 7.30 p.m. precisely, the front doorbell rang. Fee’s flat was superficially in good working order – toys shoved under beds and behind chairs, the lights dimmed, a table beautifully laid by Gill, who saw it as a chance to show Fee how it should be done properly.

  Fee arrived home from work at seven and discovered there was little for her to do, except put the wine she’d brought in the fridge. The soup had been made, the chicken breasts were in the oven and the lemon souffle was in the fridge.

  So, by 7.30 p.m., she was fully prepared when she went downstairs to open the door to Paul Denning.

  Fee smiled as he carefully put the flowers and champagne and casual jacket he had been carrying on the stairs. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her lips, her eyelids, the end of her nose. He ran his fingers through her hair and told her how much he had missed her. She too had missed the smell and the strength of him – and some of his weaknesses – but she said nothing.

  The two walked up the stairs in silence. Paul kissed her again in the hall outside her door. Fee led him into her flat and into the sitting room. The French windows on to the balcony were open, the candles on the table had been lit, a decanter of red wine had been set in the centre.

  Around the table, dressed in their best, sat Persephone, Shona, Gill, Veronica, Jean Stoker – invited by Veronica at the last minute – and Alan Munsen.

  ‘Now,’ said Fee, smiling at Paul, ‘where shall I begin the introductions?’

  ‘Since you ask,’ Alan Munsen said to Fee a couple of hours later as they stacked the dishwasher, ‘I think he’s a bit of a spiv.’

  Fee had found it revealing to have the two men at the same table. Alan had encouraged others to open up; he had teased Percy until she was delirious. Gill had even opened up to Alan in whispered asides about Simon’s affair, referring to it, in front of her daughter as, ‘Daddy’s little hiccup’. Paul Denning, in contrast, had sulked. His interest in anyone else was minimal.

  ‘Percy tells me that Paul was once a boyfriend of yours, is that right?’ Alan asked Fee casually as he tipped the dregs of the cafetière down the sink. Before she could reply, he added, ‘It’s happened to me in the past too. I’ve been quite keen on someone, only to meet them later and realize what a fool I’d made of myself—’

  At eleven, Fee slipped out of her flat as arranged. Paul had left earlier. She’d invented a story about a report at the office that she’d forgotten. Half an hour later, she was standing naked in Paul’s hotel room. She undressed him and led him to the bed. The emotional distance that she now experienced in his company freed the inhibitions that she had previously been too fearful to let go. Paradoxically, because she no longer cared, she could be as demonstrative as she pleased.

  Soon after, while Paul slept, Fee showered and dressed. He woke as she kissed him goodbye.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something I have to tell you—’

  Fee smiled and sat on the edge of the bed. Is it about your wife?’ she asked carefully.

  His features registered no surprise. ‘What wife?’ he replied evenly.

  ‘Aah, so you’ve got more than one,’ Fee gently mocked.

  She reached into her handbag and gave him the envelope that she had found in the corridor outside his room. It was addressed to Mr and Mrs P. J. Denning.

  Paul laughed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Silly girl,’ he chided. ‘It’s a letter addressed to my parents. You should know better.’

  ‘I do,’ Fee replied.

  ‘She’s a cow. She’s an absolute unadulterated bloody cow.’

  As Fee let herself in her front door, the weeping and wailing floating down the stairs made it sound as if a Lebanese funeral was taking place. She walked into the sitting room. Alan Munsen was comforting Gill, who was sobbing uncontrollably on his shoulder.

  He jumped up, relieved, when he saw Fee. Veronica beckoned her into the kitchen. She explained in a whisper, ‘Imogen phoned to make arrangements to pick you up tomorrow. Isn’t she buying you an outfit or something? Anyway, Gill answered the phone.’

  ‘And?’ Fee prompted her sister.

  ‘And, Imogen offered Gill her condolences.’

  ‘Why, who’s died?’ Fee asked alarmed.

  ‘Nobody’s died,’ Veronica explained. ‘It’s Simon. He’s been made redundant. Three weeks ago. And he never told Gill. Of course, she pretended she knew to Imogen, but once she came off the phone, she fell to pieces. I’ve never seen her like that before. She’s quietening down a bit now . . . go and see if you can cheer her up—’

  As Fee walked back into the sitting room, Gill’s distress had become a touch theatrical. ‘I’ve been mugged by destiny,’ she sobbed. ‘All my plans are in ruins. Why couldn’t he tell me the mortgage hasn’t been paid for a month?’ She turned to Fee.

  ‘Now I’ll end up like you, just drifting through life. Why didn’t I choose a man who can get a grip on a situation?’

  ‘Perhaps because you wanted a man you could boss?’ Alan suggested gently. Fee had to admire his guts. Gill gave him a withering look.

  ‘We’ll have to sell the house,’ she announced. ‘I’ll get a job and Simon will have to be the house husband. I knew it would come to this. I said all along that I could earn twice his money—’

  ‘Why don’t you talk it over with Simon first?’ Fee proposed. ‘He might have ideas of his own? I mean, if you’re going to get back together, it’s his future too, isn’t it?’

  ‘Look,’ Gill replied. The crying had made her eyes look like the ripe flesh of pomegranates. ‘I’ve learned from experience that I tend to be right about these things and Simon isn’t—’

  ‘Yes, but how high a price will you pay for that certainty?’ Alan asked. Gill glanced at him, uncomprehending.

  He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly. ‘Of course, I’m not really in a position to speak, since I’ve never managed to sustain a long relationship, but—’

  ‘Precisely,’ Gill interrupted coldly.

  Later, Fee walked with Alan Munsen to his car, relaxed in his company.

  ‘Percy told me something in strictest confidence tonight,’ Alan smiled. ‘She told me, and I quote, “Will fancies Fee something rotten.” ’

  Fee snorted. ‘Nonsense. We’ve known each other for ever. Will’s girlfriends are nothing like me. You should meet Hannah. She couldn’t be more different. For a start she’s a damn sight tougher.’

  ‘Talking of tough,’ Alan smiled wryly, ‘how long have you and Gill been friends?’

  ‘Long enough to put up with her being a bit over the top every now and then. She’s been good to me in the past, very good,’ Fee answered firmly.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with her that a little humility wouldn’t put right,’ Alan Munsen remarked lightly. ‘And what about this Imogen Banks?’

  Fee laughed. ‘A little humility wouldn’t even begin to make a dent on Imogen. She runs a television company. I suspect she more or less tricked me into taking part in a film she’s making. Now, I can’t go back on the promise but something tells me the whole exercise is something I’ll live to regret.’

  ‘The whole exercise in what?’ Alan asked, curious now.

  ‘Singling myself out in a way my mother isn’t going to appreciate at all,’ Fee sighed.

  The battle in the hairdresser’s had been long and fierce. Imogen Banks wanted Fee to have a style that was shorter, highlighted and, as she phrased it, ‘more chiselled’. Fee emerged more or less as she went in – except for the extra sheen.

  In the area of clothes, Fee conceded more.

  ‘Red,’ Imogen instructed the assistant in one of those shops which has an interior that resembles a ship’s boiler room, re-created at great cost: pipes,
nuts, chrome and steel. ‘We’re thinking lots of red.’

  After several different outfits had been tried and discarded, Imogen announced that we were no longer thinking red, we might now be thinking cream.

  ‘But I wear cream and black all the time anyway,’ Fee pointed out. ‘Why do I need to buy anything new?’

  Imogen had already moved on. She was contemplating warm tangerine.

  Warm tangerine proved surprisingly striking. Fee agreed to the colour but rejected the gold-chain belt and the scarf with the Chanel logo embellished all over it.

  ‘That scarf says such a lot,’ Imogen argued.

  ‘On the contrary,’ Fee countered. ‘It says yesterday’s shopper.’

  ‘Oh I like that.’ Imogen gave a happy smile. ‘We’ll have that in the film, darling. You won’t forget now, will you? Write it down, just in case you do. “Yesterday’s shopper”—’

  Driving Imogen back to the office, Fee’s car phone rang. It was Claire.

  ‘I wondered if you fancied dropping by this evening?’ Claire asked. ‘Perhaps stay for something to eat?’

  ‘But it’s Saturday,’ Fee pointed out.

  ‘I know it’s Saturday,’ Claire replied curtly. ‘Are you telling me that you’re already booked?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Fee smiled. ‘I assumed that it would be you who had something on. Or has Clem taken the ten-year-olds in his class off for a week in the Dolomites?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t,’ Claire replied. Fee knew she was being defensive. ‘He’s got a few things to sort out—’

  ‘But I thought he had moved in with you?’ Fee asked.

  ‘He has, he did,’ Claire struggled. ‘What I mean is, he’s gone back home, just for now . . . until we can find somewhere that’s big enough for both of us—’

  ‘But your place is huge,’ Fee persisted. Privately, this erratic behaviour on Clem’s part confirmed her view that there was something inherently unstable about him.

  ‘Look, Fee,’ Claire replied. ‘It was my idea that Clem move out. I’m not used to having someone around all the time . . . It’ll be fine when we find somewhere that is new to both of us. I’m sure then I won’t feel so – so . . . well, possessive . . . as if he’s playing with my toys all the time—’

  ‘It takes time to adjust—’ Fee offered sympathetically.

  Her hopes were suddenly high: goodbye, Clem.

  ‘A friend?’ Imogen asked when the conversation had come to an end. Fee was to call by Claire’s flat later for supper.

  ‘A really old friend,’ Fee replied and added deceptively casually, ‘How about you, Imogen, have you got many women friends?’

  Imogen opened and closed her mouth. The fish was landed, why lie any further?

  ‘Well, to be honest . . .’ She took a deep breath, ‘I can’t stand women. In my view, they allow themselves to be walked over too much. They whinge and whine.’

  She picked up pace. ‘Instead of changing themselves, too many sit on their backsides and do nothing, while they wait for society to change. They want the rules redrawn, special dispensations, extra help, soft options, the works—’

  She was now elated by her own argument.

  ‘I mean at what point do women begin to take responsibility for themselves, instead of banging on about the lack of choices each time the going gets tough? Why don’t they assume power in situations, instead of waring for it to be handed to them? I mean, when are they going to live in the real world? It ain’t easy for men out there, either, honey—’ she added with a flourish.

  ‘Take your friend Gill. She wants Simon to be the traditional breadwinner. She wants him to make her financially secure for life. At the same time, she’s constantly whining on about how her talents are wasted just being a wife and a mother . . . She chose to put herself in that situation, for God’s sake. She can choose to get herself out of it, can’t she? Talk about having your cake and eating it—’

  Fee interrupted, ‘Imogen . . . But for women like Gill and me— and you come to that – in our thirties and forties, we’re part of a transition, aren’t we?

  ‘Percy says she wants some security in her life so she’s never getting married . . . When I wasn’t much older than her, my mother drummed it into me that a marriage certificate was the best kind of security a girl could have—

  ‘It’s a long way to travel in one lifetime—’ Fee continued. ‘So no wonder some of us hold back when we should move forward. Don’t tell me there are moments when you’re just as confused and weak as the rest of us, Imogen?’

  Imogen thought it best to leave the question unanswered.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  LES HASLEM was sitting cross-legged on the pavement outside Fee Travers’s flat when she arrived home that evening. Alan, Gill, the twins and Percy swirled around him. They were loading Gill’s car. Fee experienced a sense of relief at the unexpected sight of the brood decamping. Once more, she would be queen of her own castle. But unexpectedly, a mild depression accompanied the relief.

  ‘Les, why are you sitting on the pavement?’ Fee asked, trying not to smile at the bizarre figure her brother-in-law cut. ‘Why don’t you come in and have a drink?’

  ‘What have you done with my wife?’ Les boomed.

  ‘Veronica? I thought she was in the flat?’

  Les glowered with rage. ‘Don’t you pretend you know nothing about it, Fiona Travers. Veronica’s told me she met some woman at a party that you took her to. Now she’s cleared off, probably with her. AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Les, I haven’t a clue, I—’ He was having none of it.

  ‘Don’t you bloody patronize me,’ he roared. ‘We were doing all right until you stuck your nose in. The golf had done wonders for her . . . then you had to turn Veronica into a skivvy. And now God knows what she’s up to—’

  ‘I—’

  ‘I nothing,’ Les bellowed. ‘If my Veronica has become a lesbian, I’ll sue you. Do you hear me? I’ll bloody sue you for every penny you’ve got—’

  Litigation over your wife’s libido was an interesting idea, Fee thought. What if, after all these years, the inheritor of Vera’s mantle turned out to be, not herself, as Helen had always feared, but Veronica, the daughter whom Helen assumed could do no wrong? Fee suppressed a smile at the irony.

  ‘This isn’t a laughing matter,’ Les protested fiercely and winced as Gill clipped him on the head with the wheel of the child’s bike she was carrying.

  ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t smiling at you, really I wasn’t.’ Fee attempted to make amends. ‘Look, Les, you’d be much more comfortable inside . . . If you come with me, I’ll phone around. Someone is sure to know where Veronica is . . . Perhaps we could even see this as a good sign?’ she suggested hesitantly.

  ‘Good sign? How the bloody hell can this be a good sign?’ Les yelled, staying put.

  ‘What I mean is—’ Fee stepped out of Alan Munsen’s way as he walked past, carrying two suitcases. Then she crouched down and said softly, ‘What I was trying to say, Les, was that Veronica is so full of life these days she doesn’t have time to worry about the other . . . the other business . . . So that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not if she turns into a dike and deserts me,’ Les pronounced grimly. ‘A man has a right to save his wife from the worst side of herself . . . I’m here to protest. It’s the only way any bugger in this family will take notice.’

  Percy had stopped to listen to Les. ‘If you’re protesting,’ she asked politely, ‘does that mean you’re going to set yourself alight?’

  Half an hour later, Fee handed Les Haslem a whisky. It was Alan Munsen who had eventually persuaded him to end his one-man demonstration. He had put his arms around the man’s shoulders and said, ‘C’mon, mate, I know how you feel—’

  That was all it had taken. Les had shed a couple of tears. Now, he was opening a bottle of wine for Gill who was sitting on the sofa, easing off her shoes.

  ‘Just one glass,’ she instru
cted. ‘Then we’re off. Sorry it’s happened so suddenly, Fee, but I thought I’d strike while the iron was hot—’

  ‘Mummy says Daddy’s ready to eat humble pie,’ Percy offered by way of explanation.

  ‘Percy, why don’t you take the twins and check under all the beds? We’re bound to have left something,’ Gill instructed.

  ‘But I want to stay and listen—’ Percy began, but she reluctantly moved towards the bedroom, propelled by the look on her mother’s face.

  Gill waited for the door to close behind her daughter before she continued, ‘Simon has suggested that we give it another try. I laid down my conditions, he accepted, so off we go again. And Fee,’ Gill looked uncomfortable, ‘Fee, I want to say thank you. You’ve been wonderful to the children. And I know I’ve been a bit of a pig at times . . . So thank you.’ She gave herself a small shake, as if to shed this unfamiliar sense of indebtedness.

  ‘The first plan is to sell our house, and rent somewhere smaller. Can you believe that, all these years, Simon’s never actually liked the house?’ she added incredulously.

  ‘Did you ever ask him if he liked it?’ Fee questioned mildly.

  ‘He’s got a voice, hasn’t he?’ Gill snapped. Alan, carrying in a tray of glasses, raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Look here, does anybody know where my wife is?’ Les broke in plaintively. ‘Will somebody tell me what’s happened to the woman I married?’

  ‘Oh, do pull yourself together, Les,’ Gill responded impatiently. ‘You’re certainly not the first. Every bloody person I know asks that sooner or later . . . What’s happened to the woman I married? Or, in my case, the man. To be frank, that’s not the question that matters. The real issue is how you’re going to cope with the partner you’ve got, however bloody monstrous.’

  Fee patted Les on the arm.

  ‘Look,’ she offered, ‘I’ll give Jean Stoker a ring. She’ll probably know where Veronica is. She and Veronica seemed to have taken to each other—’ Les shot Fee an even more pained look.

  ‘What I mean is, they have a lot in common,’ Fee corrected hastily. ‘And Jean is a really nice woman.’