The Trouble with Single Women

by Yvonne Roberts

  Alarmed, she called immediately. Gwynfor Pryce suggested they meet in person. Fee invited him to the flat. Half an hour later, he was at the door.

  He was as flamboyant in his appearance as the first time they had met. On this occasion, he was dressed in a black suit, white shirt and a postbox red polka-dotted tie. He refused a drink.

  ‘It’s Rita,’ he said. ‘Do you know her well?’

  Fee shook her head.

  Pryce spoke again. ‘She’s been coming to our meetings off and on for a year or so. A week after you came, she gave me your telephone number. She said I was to contact you in the event of anything happening—’

  ‘Happening?’ Fee asked. ‘What’s happened? You said you were troubled about her? Do you mean professionally? Are you having premonitions?’

  Gwynfor Pryce stared at his hands, and crossed and uncrossed his patent-leather shoes.

  ‘I’ll be frank,’ he said. ‘I’ve lent her some money and I’d quite like to know where it is . . . She told me she was the warden in a block of old people’s flats. She said the residents had helped to raise funds to pay for a week’s holiday in Bournemouth. It had been stolen, and unless there was sufficient for a deposit to pay for the coaches and the hotel, the whole trip would be in jeopardy.

  ‘She told me it would be covered by insurance but not in time to save the holiday, so I said, “No problem.” I owed her one,’ Gwynfor Pryce confessed. ‘Over the months, she’s brought no end of women into the group . . . Most of them living on their own, a lot of them professional, well off—’

  ‘Women she’s conned out of money?’ Fee asked.

  Gwynfor Pryce shrugged. ‘Who can tell? But somehow I don’t think so . . . She’d come with the same person for a couple of weeks, then she’d be on her own again. I think she’s so lonely she frightens them off. She doesn’t know what to do with people, if you know what I mean? Not in terms of friendship.’

  ‘Well, she certainly knew what to do with you, Mr Pryce.’ Fee teased him a little. ‘I’m surprised you couldn’t see her coming.’

  Gwynfor Pryce looked sheepish. ‘She’s got a helluva silver tongue. She’s very good at it. And I’ve met the best.’

  He left shortly after. Fee went into her bedroom, opened the wardrobe and began to hunt through the pockets of the clothes she had worn when she and Claire had first visited Rita Mason’s bedsit. She eventually found the slip of paper with the address of Rita’s mother written on it, in Jimmy Roth’s strong hand. There was no name, only the address: 48, Penshurst Terrace, Westcliff, Cardiff.

  Fee mapped out a plan. Today was Monday. She would finish filming with Imogen Banks and write the main report on the restructuring of Harry Macklin’s Have a Heart! empire by Friday. On Friday evening, it had been arranged that she, Jean and Victoria would drive to the cottage in Devon for the weekend.

  Next Monday would be the earliest that Fee could visit Rita Mason’s mother. If a mother can’t explain the mystery that is her daughter, then who can?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘IT WAS a lie. Of course, it was a bloody lie.’ Edward Spannier chose not to look at his wife, as he carefully scraped the uneaten dinner she had just served from his plate into the bin.

  ‘This’, he said calmly, ‘is inedible.’

  Shona Spannier watched her husband and allowed herself to savour the unfamiliar reaction she was experiencing. It was indifference. She was past caring. Shona knew this wouldn’t last, she would no doubt torment herself afresh, but for now her indifference was intoxicating. It smelt of freedom.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Edward demanded, his voice threatening. ‘I said I lied about that bitch that Will Evans sleeps with. I wouldn’t go near her even if she begged me for it.’

  Shona sighed. ‘What you mean is that she turned you down.’ Edward crossed the kitchen in three steps, grabbed a fistful of his wife’s hair and twisted it in his hand, forcing her face close to his. She could smell the alcohol on his breath; he was trembling with rage. How many times had she recognized this prelude to a beating?

  A beating. Such a polite, hygienic, solid word which disguised the desperate, humiliating scrabble to protect herself. After the beating would come Edward’s flight, followed by his return and then remorse.

  ‘The only time I have any power in this relationship’, Shona thought, ‘is when I have the power to forgive him—’

  Edward hit his wife hard. She bit her tongue. The salt taste of blood was strangely comforting.

  She fell, knocking her temple on the side of the breakfast bar and toppling one of the stools. She landed on it awkwardly, so that a leg of the stool poked her hard in the ribs, making it still more difficult to draw breath. Instinct made Shona roll away as her husband raised his foot to kick.

  Edward turned and made for the door. ‘Don’t go,’ she called. ‘Teddy, please, don’t go.’

  It was a scene the two had played out many times before. Edward stopped, his back to her. Shona slowly got to her feet.

  ‘You stay in the flat,’ she told her husband, her voice strong and even. A voice he hadn’t heard before.

  ‘You stay, Edward,’ Shona repeated, ‘because I’m the one who’s leaving.’

  ‘Fabulously, fortuitously, famously, fleshy,’ Imogen Banks shouted at her reflection, her arms raised like a Broadway star.

  ‘I love you,’ she cooed at herself. ‘You are so clever, so talented, so cunning—’ As a reward, she popped a handful of chocolate-covered raisins in her mouth. So who said they shouldn’t be eaten at six o’clock in the morning?

  She selected a bright-blue jacket and a black skirt with a matching blue and black patterned top.

  She had several reasons for jubilation. Whatever Simon Booth had told his wife, and whatever Imogen had said to Fee Travers, their relationship was moving along nicely. In fact, Simon was proving quite a tiger . . .

  Better still, she had looked at what had already been shot of Fee and the contretemps at F.P. & D. That plus interviews with those who had loved and known her, basic information kindly supplied by Helen Travers, would make a very nice montage of the modern-day spinster.

  Imogen’s attempt to find some psychological explanation for Fee’s rejection of men had, it was true, not come to fruition. But now she had decided to establish in the film that the problem wasn’t Fee’s – it was men’s.

  If men weren’t prepared to shape up, then the women of the future would refuse to come to heel. Fee Travers was about to be recast. She was no longer a neurotic, but a woman ahead of her time.

  Imogen didn’t believe a word of it, of course. Most women she’d come across believed that bastards were to die for . . . But she knew good television when she saw it.

  Fee felt like a dog. She had arrived at work at eight, having had only a few hours’ sleep.

  When Shona Spannier left her flat, she had temporarily moved in with Fee. Much of the rest of the night had been spent listening to Shona. All paths led to the same central dilemma: she didn’t want to leave Edward – not because of her commitment to him, but because of her commitment to the institution of marriage.

  She didn’t want to leave him, but neither did she want to live with the man that he had become.

  They both agreed, some time after 5 a.m., that Edward should be taught a lesson. It was only when Fee was making scrambled eggs that the idea came to her. It was wicked and deceitful. But in terms of creative thinking, it gave Fee far more satisfaction than anything she had achieved at F.P. & D. in a very long while.

  Fee briefly outlined her idea to Shona who was appalled. She refused to have anything to do with it. But by the time Fee dished up their breakfast, her resistance had weakened.

  ‘You’re a bad influence on me,’ Shona protested.

  ‘I hope so,’ Fee replied cheerfully. ‘I really hope so.’

  Imogen Banks knew that if she wanted Hampstead Heath, semi-deserted and approaching twilight, it was ridiculous to film at 11 a.m. on a weekday. Still,
that was what Fee Travers’s schedule permitted, so that’s what had to be.

  ‘Walk!’ Imogen bellowed. Fee dutifully walked away from the camera and the ponds and towards the brow of the hill.

  A jogger stopped her and asked the time. ‘Cut!’ yelled Imogen.

  What she had sought, as an image for the end of the film, was Fee, a solitary figure, but striding confidently towards an unknown future. It was corny. It was a cliché. It had been seen before. But that’s why Imogen knew it would press the appropriate emotional buttons, before the viewer pressed the only other button that mattered – the off switch.

  Imogen’s scenario was not working out well, however. Far from being solitary, Fee had been stopped more times than a King’s Cross hooker.

  ‘Let’s wrap,’ Imogen ordered. It was only a small blip. She could manipulate people better than a master puppeteer, she told herself with some pride. She was without match.

  ‘So, have you thought about taking part in a discussion programme after the film?’ Imogen asked Fee casually, as they drove back to F.P. & D.

  ‘When did you say the film’s going out?’ Fee asked, equally relaxed.

  ‘Three weeks. It’s a fast edit—’

  Fee smiled guilelessly at Imogen. ‘I’m going with a few friends to a cottage for the weekend on Friday. I was hoping you might come?’

  ‘Friends?’ Imogen responded, suspiciously.

  ‘Women friends,’ Fee answered firmly. ‘Five of us, including you.’

  To Imogen, this was a prospect as enticing as a time-share in hell: fluctuating oestrogen and no men. Then she remembered that Fee still had to say yes to the studio discussion.

  ‘I’d love to come.’ Imogen smiled, then swallowed hard.

  ‘That’s perfect,’ Fee grinned.

  ‘Sweetheart Cottage’ was neither romantic nor idyllic; nor, for that matter, was it a cottage. It was a pebble-dash former council house, perched in splendid isolation in a large and unkept garden, between a delightful village and a motorway which rumbled constantly with traffic. It was like being sited in the stomach of a half-starved giant.

  ‘It could be worse,’ Veronica had remarked brightly. ‘We might have come in August with the holiday-makers. Then, the racket really would have been unbearable.’

  Collectively, the women set about putting a good gloss on the situation. The garden had a stream and a hammock and was overflowing with wild flowers. The interior was comfortable and carefully decorated with chintz and blue china and oak panels, just as if the building did have a thatched roof.

  The beds were comfortable and the fridge was large enough to stock the dozen bottles of champagne Imogen had insisted on bringing as a means of ensuring that the weekend would at least allow her the private pleasure of getting blotto.

  Three bottles had already been drunk by the time it came to prepare the salad dressing, late on the Friday evening. Gill’s absence (she was at home nurturing her relationship) had restored Jean Stoker to the position of head chef. She had brought a cold supper with her – but now four women jostled for the honour of making the vinaigrette.

  Fee had absconded from the competitors’ tent which the kitchen had become. She had always viewed prowess in the domestic arena as something to be avoided.

  Much to everyone’s surprise, Shona Spannier proved the toughest. ‘I’m sorry,’ she insisted, ‘but until you’ve tasted my dressing, you have not lived. I’ll make it—’

  Much later, after brandy had been opened to follow the champagne and white wine, and life stories had been told, some more highly edited than others, and the conversation had grown increasingly boozy and giggly and infantile, Fee casually suggested that it might be fun if each woman told the others a secret.

  A real secret.

  Imogen Banks put up her hand. ‘I’ll start,’ she offered. ‘My secret is that I can’t stand women,’ she surveyed the others defiantly.

  ‘All women?’ Jean asked, impressed by Imogen’s honesty.

  ‘All women,’ Imogen repeated firmly. ‘Ladies, I warn you,’ she wagged her finger. ‘Never put your trust in old Imogen here . . . Never.’

  Jean looked askance. ‘That’s not much of a secret, is it?’ she challenged her bullishly, tipsier than she’d been since her stepdaughter’s wedding. ‘I’ll give you a real one. How about this?’ She paused for dramatic effect. ‘I recently paid for sex.’

  It was Veronica who broke the silence. ‘I thought you said you hadn’t?’ She chastised her business partner in shock. ‘How could you?’

  ‘Surprisingly easily,’ Jean answered smoothly. ‘Did I feel guilty afterwards? No. Was I ashamed? No. Would Trevor have approved? Probably.

  ‘It’s been a year since he died and I came away feeling, well, restored. As an occasional diversion, I’d recommend it.’

  Jean knew she had a captive audience. ‘I doubt I’ll ever do it again in my life – but the experience has certainly given me the confidence I was lacking to take off the brakes, change gear—’

  Imogen was gazing intently at Jean Stoker. Fee knew exactly what she was thinking. Imogen was thinking Television.

  Imogen examined the other women. This weekend might well turn out to be far more fruitful than she had anticipated.

  ‘Whose turn is it now?’ she asked eagerly. She was disappointed when Fee elected to speak.

  ‘My best friend Claire is getting married in three months and I can’t stand Clem – her husband to be,’ Fee offered. ‘I want Claire to dump him so we can go back to how we were. Isn’t that horrible of me?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Veronica said. ‘I didn’t think you were like that, Fee.’

  ‘No judgements allowed,’ Jean interceded, inventing a rule.

  ‘Do you really want to split them up?’ Imogen asked. Fee could have sworn that, in the firelight, she spotted fangs.

  ‘Sleep with Claire’s boyfriend,’ Imogen suggested brutally. ‘Then threaten to tell her.’

  Shona, Jean, Veronica and Fee looked at her with distaste. She held her smile but made a mental note to expose less of her true self in future. She had forgotten just how stupidly sentimental women are.

  ‘Why?’ Veronica asked innocently. ‘Why threaten to tell Claire?’

  ‘To cause trouble,’ Imogen answered defiantly. ‘Fee won’t have to tell Claire, because Clem will tell her himself. Claire’s not the kind to forgive . . . She’ll probably threaten never to speak to Fee again, but she’ll forgive and forget. And Clem will have definitely been given the boot. Isn’t that what you want, Fee?’

  Bored, Imogen curtailed further discussion on the issue by addressing herself to Shona. ‘Your turn now,’ she directed.

  Shona fumbled, ‘I have got a secret . . . of sorts. I’ve got a secret desire to teach my husband a lesson that he’ll never forget—’

  ‘You don’t even have to tell us the details,’ Imogen intercepted swiftly. Adultery. She’d been there, done that. Nothing in it, in television terms.

  ‘Leave him,’ she instructed Shona crisply. ‘Who’s next?’

  ‘I couldn’t. I can’t,’ Shona replied, looking towards Fee for support. ‘I’ve got a responsibility to try and make this marriage work – for the sake of our boys apart from anything else. Besides, Edward wants to be a Labour MP and he wouldn’t even think of giving me a divorce now—’

  ‘Oh God, you bloody wives are all the same,’ Imogen pronounced, exasperated. ‘Dictate your own sodding terms to your old man, why don’t you? What’s the matter with you, woman?’

  Shona looked at Imogen. She took in Imogen’s voluptuous breasts and her small, surprisingly delicate hands and her full lips as she sat in front of the fire, aflame in a bright-red silk shirt. Fee was right; Imogen Banks was the ideal candidate for the job.

  ‘You could do it,’ Shona suddenly said. ‘Imogen, you could teach Edward a lesson. He’s always the one in control. Take that away from him. Just once—

  ‘Please, arrange to go out with him, spend the night and b
efore anything . . . well, anything happens . . . I’ll burst in on you . . . For once he’d be on the defensive. I’d have something to trade—’

  Imogen raised her hands in mock horror. ‘And you call this love?’ Then she laughed dismissively. Such a prank certainly wasn’t beyond her abilities but why on earth would she do a favour like that for a virtual stranger?

  On Sunday morning, it was a group decision to go for a walk on one of the nearby beaches. Imogen lagged behind the others. Fee took her opportunity and joined her.

  ‘About this studio discussion—’ Fee began. Imogen looked at Fee dully. Such a decent, bright, uncomplicated, straightforward clean-living woman, Imogen thought to herself savagely, as she nursed her second hangover of the weekend, aware that Fee had drunk far less.

  Fee smiled at Imogen. She had drunk less, in order to negotiate better. ‘I’ve decided that I’ll take part in your discussion,’ she said, ‘if you’ll agree to what Shona wants—’

  Imogen looked at her blankly. ‘And what does Shona want?’ she asked. Friday night’s confessions had been buried by a hundred conversations since. Why did women talk so bloody much?

  ‘She wants you to attempt to seduce her husband, Edward, so that she can – as she puts it – have a lever on him. I think she’s mad. I think she should leave him and make a fresh start. But then—’

  Imogen interrupted. ‘But then you’re not the one in favour of marriage—’

  Fee corrected her gently. ‘I’m not the one in favour of relationships which work for one person in the partnership but at too high a price for the other—’

  ‘And what’s in all this for you?’ Imogen asked bluntly.

  Fee shrugged her shoulders. ‘Nothing. Edward’s a bastard who deserves what he gets. And I feel sorry for Shona.’

  ‘So, The Lone Ranger still rides the range?’ she snapped as she stomped away.

  ‘I take that as a yes then,’ Fee shouted after her retreating back.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  AT 9.30 A.M. on Monday morning, Persephone Booth, aged seven and three-quarters, was not in school. She was wearing the school uniform of dark green and red; she had her school satchel, but, instead of standing in assembly, singing ‘Morning has Broken’ for the umpteenth time, she was sitting at Fee Travers’s kitchen table, and she was negotiating hard.