The Trouble with Single Women

by Yvonne Roberts

  ‘I hadn’t realized,’ Fee said unnecessarily.

  ‘Why should you?’ Will shrugged. ‘I’m as good at hiding my feelings as the next man . . . Besides, I knew I couldn’t inflict the requisite amount of suffering on you that you seem to require before you can be attracted. Oh, excuse me,’ he added sarcastically. ‘Clem Thomas is different of course. Well, I’ve met him a couple of times and, if you ask me, I don’t think he’s what he makes out to be. But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?’

  Fee shook her head, as if to remove physically the doubt that Will was trying to plant. He stared fixedly into the middle distance, a muscle in his cheek twitching. Fee couldn’t respond in the way that he wished, so the silence between them grew.

  Eventually, he spoke. ‘Look, Fee, let’s forget that I said anything. Let’s continue on as we did before . . . And whatever you decide . . . about Clem Thomas, I mean, it’s fine by me. So we’re still good mates. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Fee replied. But they both knew that something between them had been permanently lost.

  At the barbecue, Tom Lewis revealed to Fee a new talent. He could sing. He could even sing and play guitar at the same time. As rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of Henry and the Has-Beens, he stole the show, not least because there was nobody else even attempting to compete.

  The Has-Beens had originally agreed to play for an hour, but they played for over two. The group consisted of the local butcher on bass, a primary schoolteacher on lead, the village postman on drums and fifteen-year-old Charlie doing an excellent job on keyboards.

  At midnight, after two encores of ‘Rock Around the Clock’, Henry and the Has-Beens took their final bows. The money raised, Tom announced, would go towards the £50,000 required for new operating theatres in Leatrice Fitzgerald’s children’s hospital in India.

  ‘If you know anyone who is good at money,’ Lea whispered in Fee’s ear, ‘we’re desperate for cash.’

  An ideal, if unwilling, candidate came to Fee’s mind almost immediately.

  Much later, Anna and Fee were each curled up on a sofa in Anna’s sitting room. The fire had been lit and they had made coffee. Everyone else in the house had retired to bed. Charlie had staggered home drunk – a first, at least as far as his mother was aware. Then, in the way that fifteen-year-old boys sometimes do, he had indulged in projectile vomiting for a considerable period of time in the bathroom. It had taken the two women an hour to clean him and the room up.

  Anna thanked Fee for her stoicism under fire. ‘Do you know, Fee, I always assumed that you and Bill would have children.’

  Fee refilled her cup before answering. ‘I used to have periods when I felt vaguely broody but it was more to do with looking fabulous in a maternity smock. And Bill didn’t seem very bothered either.

  ‘I think, years ago, I was put off by what my mother did to us . . . Elizabeth, Veronica and me. She was so determined that we should be these perfect, well-behaved little girls whom the neighbours could find nothing but praise for . . . that we were reared on double doses of criticism. If you want good growth,’ Fee added drily, ‘I’d assume approval is a much more efficient fertilizer.’

  She sipped her coffee. ‘Anyway, at some point I suppose I must have decided that I wouldn’t want to take the risk of grinding down a child of mine in the same way . . . But you know me—’ Fee shrugged self-deprecatingly. ‘I drift into situations . . .’ She turned the attention away from herself. ‘You don’t seem much of a drifter these days, Anna. Did the divorce make the difference?’

  Anna shook her head and picked up a large framed photograph from the table closest to her. The photograph was fuzzy but it showed a youngish woman, in a paper hat from a Christmas cracker, pulling a face at the camera.

  ‘She made the difference. You probably don’t remember her, Fee, but you met her at my house in London. Ros Cambridge?’ Anna jogged Fee’s memory. ‘She was an actress . . . and she’d written a couple of plays for the fringe?’

  ‘What’s she doing now?’ Fee asked.

  ‘She’s dead,’ Anna replied, her voice several tones lower. ‘She died six years ago this September. September the fifth actually—’ She returned the photograph to the table, moving it slightly, so that when the curtains were drawn back it would face the garden.

  ‘I’m so sorry . . .’ Fee stumbled. ‘What a waste; she must have been very young—’

  ‘What a waste?’ Anna sounded bitter. ‘That doesn’t even begin to match Ros’s views on the subject.

  ‘She was only thirty-three. She found a lump on her breast, same old story. She had a boyfriend whom she’d just met, she’d wanted children, her career was just beginning to take shape. She knew right from the first diagnosis – no matter how much crap the doctors told her – that die she would, and soon. And, Christ, did that make her angry.’

  Anna lit a cigarette but left it unsmoked. ‘What Ros categorically refused to be was brave; on principle. She refused to play the dying game.

  ‘On the contrary, she raged, she shouted, she drove almost everyone away with her anger and her distress. A lot of people didn’t like it at all . . . they wanted to visit someone who wouldn’t make a fuss, wouldn’t remind them of their own mortality . . . wouldn’t make them feel guilty.’ Anna fell silent. Then she stubbed out her cigarette savagely.

  ‘Considering how many millions of people experience birth and death, the details of both are two of our best-kept secrets, don’t you think?’ she asked tartly.

  ‘Were you with her when she died?’ Fee asked gently.

  Anna’s face brightened as if the humour mined from a memory had eased her grief. ‘Ros didn’t want to stay in the hospice. She wanted to be at home.

  ‘Once she’d become seriously ill, a lot of people fell away, including the boyfriend, poor love.

  ‘So, when she said she wanted to be at home, I was happy to look after her for that last month.’

  Anna glanced again at the photograph and smiled.

  ‘Ros died the way she’d lived. On the evening of September the fifth, she had a terrible row with her GP who’d suggested she might want to return to the hospice for a couple of nights, so that the pain relief could be better controlled.

  ‘She told him she’d never felt better. That evening she asked if we could watch Coronation Street. She was shameless in her addiction to soaps. Later, she had a bit of a weep, like a child who’s lost, then she died in my arms.’

  Anna sat silent, tears sliding down her cheeks. After a few minutes she took a deep breath and began again.

  ‘What struck me about Ros was the extent of her regrets. She had so many. I thought the least I could do in memory of her was to shake my own life up a bit – while there was still time.

  ‘On the day of Ros’s cremation, I made a list . . . what I enjoyed and what I didn’t like about my life. Even I was surprised at how much my “let’s wait and see” attitude had almost paralysed me . . . Neil, I’m afraid, was the first to go. And here I am.’

  She took a swig of cold coffee. ‘Do you know, Fee, for the first time in my life, I’m actually doing what I want to do. I love writing, I love this village, I love the shop. It hasn’t been easy. At first, the boys hated the move and being apart from their father. But now they see more of him than they ever did when we were together.

  ‘If I made a list tonight about what I like in my life, it would be an awful lot longer than when Ros died. So I thank her for that every day.’

  The two sat silent for a while, then Fee came to a decision. ‘Can I ask your advice, Anna?’ she asked. ‘Supposing, hypothetically, your best friend had decided out of the blue to marry. She sees this, rightly or wrongly, as her last chance to settle down and have a family. Suddenly, when you least expect it, you fall in love with her husband-to-be. He claims to feel the same way about you.

  ‘The catch in this hypothetical problem is that you have a highly unreliable record when it comes to choosing men. And you know next to nothing about this particula
r man . . . You also care for your best friend.

  ‘So what’s it to be? Love, which may or may not be good for you and will certainly mean sacrificing friendship? Or forfeiting what may be your last chance of a soul mate?’

  Anna chuckled. ‘I can tell you straight away that whoever is facing this hypothetical situation ain’t no spring chicken,’ she smiled.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Fee asked defensively.

  ‘If she was twenty-one, she wouldn’t even be considering the ethics. She’d have made off with her lover man without so much as a wave goodbye,’ Anna smiled. ‘If Ros was here, she’d be all in favour too.’

  ‘And you?’ Fee pressed.

  Anna shrugged. ‘In my book, soul mates come cheap – friendship, my sweet, is so much harder to keep, don’t you think?’

  At the pub at lunchtime the following day, Fee made two calls. One was to Imogen, the other to Clem who was staying at Claire’s flat. Imogen expressed delight at being asked for her help. She welcomed a chance to restore herself in Fee’s eyes. Why, she couldn’t exactly say. She certainly had no intention of liking the woman.

  ‘Why don’t I pick you up from the station?’ Imogen suggested. ‘Make it around lunchtime tomorrow and I should have something by then—’

  ‘That soon?’ Fee asked.

  ‘My dear, we are dealing with one of the best.’

  When Fee dialled Claire’s number, Clem answered immediately, almost as if he’d been waiting.

  ‘How’s Claire?’ Fee asked, hating the deception.

  ‘She’s asleep here on the sofa but doing well. How are you?’ Clem asked evenly. His tone was warm.

  ‘Could we meet?’ Fee asked.

  ‘Shall I come to your flat?’ he answered.

  ‘No,’ Fee replied. ‘Could you come to the park, to the café? Where we first talked. Tomorrow evening around six?’

  Fee returned to the table. Tom was peeved that Anna had spent the past hour discussing Mexico with Alan. ‘When are you lot thinking of going back?’ he asked so pointedly that Fee had to smile.

  ‘Well, I’ve got to go tomorrow, I don’t know about Will and Alan. Weren’t you two talking about doing some serious walking?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m in no rush, how about you, Alan?’ Will responded. ‘Fancy a couple of days in the hills? Tom says he knows a couple of good B. &B.s—’

  ‘I certainly do,’ Tom nodded emphatically.

  The following morning, Alan drove Fee to the station.

  ‘What do you think of Anna, then?’ she asked casually. His reply was equally relaxed. ‘An interesting woman. Very interesting actually. But probably not enough of a roamer for me. Besides,’ he added, giving Fee a quick look out of the corner of his eye, ‘she seems pretty settled with Tom. And he’s a decent sort of a bloke.’

  ‘Anna and Tom are just friends. Good friends but nothing more . . . And do you know, she’s always been a bit of a gypsy at heart—’

  ‘And what does that mean in plain English?’ Alan asked.

  Fee laughed. ‘It means, I suspect you’re in with a chance—’

  On the platform, Alan reached out impulsively to hold Fee’s hands in his.

  ‘Whatever you’re up to now,’ he said, studying her face, ‘you know, there’s always an alternative. Even if he isn’t me.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  OF COURSE, you’ll have total artistic control, darlings, if that’s what you’d like,’ Imogen Banks purred.

  ‘And if I can’t persuade just one or two of your clients to show the courage of their convictions and appear on camera, well, then I’m not Imogen Banks. And, my word, think of what a slot on television will do for your profit margins?’

  My word . . . That’s precisely what was making Jean Stoker uneasy: Imogen’s word.

  She and Veronica were taking tea on Sunday afternoon in Imogen’s cavernous warehouse of a home. Shona had refused to come; how can you deal directly with the woman who has stolen your spouse? But her pride hadn’t prevented her from realizing that one television documentary on the subject of Spannier’s, due to open in a matter of weeks, would be worth thousands in terms of free publicity. The correct kind of free publicity: discreet, high class, unsensational, neither coarse nor bawdy.

  Imogen beamed at the two women. ‘Do you know how many viewers tuned in to watch The Perfumed Pound? Ten million. Helped admittedly by an excess of coarse fishing and football on the other channels, but 10 million nonetheless—’

  ‘And, since all the fuss in the paper about Fee’s—’ Imogen searched for an acceptable description. ‘About Fee’s stimulating past . . . they’re talking about a repeat. SOS is thrilled, of course, because its membership has simply shot up. Into the stratosphere.’ Imogen gestured towards the ceiling, exaggerating wildly.

  ‘Fee will be thrilled,’ Veronica commented drily. ‘She’s already had more letters than she can handle from women asking for her advice as an agony aunt.’

  She mimicked a Birmingham accent. ‘My husband and I have been married for five years. I’m bored. Is it time that I found my independence and became single again, this time for good? I would like to be empowered. Please advise soonest, PS, s.a.e. enclosed . . . Yours, Helen from Handsworth—’

  Jean smiled and stirred her tea, choosing her words carefully. ‘What does Shona’s husband think about you publicizing Spannier’s, Imogen? I assume you know he intends to become a Labour MP? Our venture isn’t exactly the monument to culture that he’d choose to be associated with, is it? What does he think about you giving it even more publicity? I mean, this is what we’re about—’

  Jean read from a leaflet, constructed from expensive, heavily embossed paper. ‘Spannier’s . . . Gentlemen carefully chosen for their intelligence, charm, humour and sensitivity—

  ‘Gentlemen who have been professionally screened to ensure that you have the utmost confidence in your own security and in their discretion.

  ‘Gentlemen whose aim is to make your evening a memorable one . . . Credit cards accepted . . . Make your choice in the privacy of your own home or visit our salon—’

  ‘Who’s doing the “professional screening”?’ Imogen asked. ‘Only I can recommend an extremely good company.’

  ‘We know,’ Veronica smiled at Imogen smugly. ‘Gill Booth has already told us. Simon found the business card for Probe-a-Partner when he was staying with you. He told Gill; she told us—’

  ‘I see,’ Imogen, tight-lipped, reminded herself to replace her waste-paper baskets with a shredder in every room.

  She moved on briskly. ‘Anyway, you were asking about Edward? He has his ambitions and I have mine and we’ve decided that while we’ll each give the other emotional support, what we do in practical terms is our own concern—’

  ‘So it’s going well then?’ Veronica asked. She had decided that Imogen Banks must be a very unhappy woman. Why else would she set about ruining other women’s relationships with such gusto?

  The only drawback in this analysis was Imogen’s demeanour. On every occasion that Veronica and she had met, Imogen looked far from unhappy. On the contrary, she was impressively jolly. Veronica had come to the conclusion that Imogen’s conscience had been rendered obsolete years ago. Still, there was something about her that Veronica couldn’t help but like.

  ‘Marvellously well,’ Imogen beamed. ‘So, what do you say about the idea of a film?’ she asked again. ‘I need an answer soon—’

  ‘Have you thought of a title?’ Veronica asked, still concerned. Imogen didn’t even have to think, she’d had the title ready for days.

  ‘How about, The Women Who Do?’ she suggested.

  Her guests went pale.

  Imogen rapidly backtracked. ‘All right, how about, The Women Who Don’t? . . . Or, Never Say Never—Or perhaps it’s best if we negotiate that little detail a lot later down the line?’ she added hurriedly.

  Veronica’s face was disapproving. ‘We need to talk to Fee,’ she announced firmly. ‘She’s back tomor
row. She’s one of our major investors and she’s already had the experience of putting herself in your hands—’

  Imogen smiled brightly, very, very brightly.

  ‘What a wise decision,’ she commented condescendingly. Her mind was already working on what she might offer Fee to encourage her to give the endorsement that she required.

  ‘What a sound move.’ She smiled.

  Driving to her office later, the solution as to what she might offer Fee came to Imogen in a moment of startling clarity.

  Clem Thomas.

  Clem was what Fee wanted more than anything else in the world. Or, more precisely, Clem’s head – on a platter. Why else would Fee have phoned from Wales to commission Probe-a-Partner to carry out an emergency search on Clem Thomas’s background and his present circumstances?

  Imogen prided herself that in spite of their relatively short acquaintance, she could read Fee like a book. It was her private opinion that Fee had traits that, if they had not been severely repressed from the moment she was on the breast, would have developed into a Machiavellian nature to rival only her own.

  Fee was a bad girl camouflaged as good.

  Imogen began to devise a strategy. Fee presumably was hoping for negative material on Clem Thomas. Once acquired, she would then find some way of feeding Claire the information. Claire would dump Clem. Fee would be single – but no longer alone. The Lone Ranger would have her Tonto back with barely a mark – except, of course, on Claire’s finger, where the discarded engagement ring might have left a small indentation.

  What Imogen had to do was deliver to Fee what she required. Only at a later stage would Imogen point out her indebtedness.

  Fee’s train was due to arrive at five minutes past noon. At eleven fifteen, Probe-a-Partner delivered its preliminary report to Imogen’s office. A more detailed report would follow in forty-eight hours.

  Imogen glanced rapidly through the details of Clem Thomas’s past and present life. She made only three additions. One was to add an extra previous wife; the second was to insert a hefty overdraft in place of two healthy accounts; the third was to omit a reference to Clem Thomas’s period as a banker and replace it with the following line: ‘Occupations until 1986 when entered teacher training college, varied, mostly non-manual, including civil servant, clerk, salesman.’