Then, against her will, a vision came to her of Richard naked with a hairdryer. Uh-oh – he looked great. Better than great. He looked magnificent. Strong, hairy, resplendent, his gorgeous chest hair oscillating under the hot, hot air of the dryer as he prepared himself for another gorgeous Richard day, a day where he’d be simultaneously rescuing kittens, ending national debt and re-insuring the globe. Damn him! Perhaps she shouldn’t have fled from his office, perhaps she should have let him kiss her for the rest of the day.
Tarquin did an almighty burp, which brought Imogen back to earth with a bump. A boozy, slightly blue cheese, slightly aniseed smell was issuing from his direction. She knew if she lit a match in front of his mouth the whole of Soho would go up in flames. The pair of them were incorrigible. Marcia – now slumped over her desk and snoring – would be useless for the rest of the afternoon and Tarquin was just plain useless full stop. After fifteen minutes and a not inconsiderable effort getting them out of the office and down the stairs – during which a diminutive acupuncturist popped her head out of a door and told them to shut up – Imogen packed them off in a taxi.
She returned to her desk, ready to enjoy another good sigh and shrug, when a text message flashed up on her phone. She picked it up quickly. Richard. Oh my God. Her heart leapt up to her chin. She started shaking.
Hey Imogen, you’re driving me nuts here. I can’t give up on you. I want to see you. Don’t be a berk, come to Ascot with me?
Despite herself, she burst out laughing. He was so funny. He was so great. She had that image of him naked again, saving the world. She didn’t want to be dull and boring and fearful.
Before she could stop herself, Imogen took a deep breath and tapped words into her phone.
Hi, you duffer. I’d love to.
Chapter Seventeen: Frankie
‘I love you, too! Now get on with your homework!’
Kids, muttered Frankie to herself with a shake of the head and a smile – how she loved them, how they drove her round the bend. She returned from shouting at the bottom of the stairs and bunged a handful of cutlery and a roll of kitchen towel on the dining room table. Grace and Imogen were coming over for pizza tonight. Takeaway pizza. They would never expect her to cook for them. She would hate to have to provide napkins and side plates and decorum. They were such great friends. She was ever so sorry she was secretly lying to them about keeping away from men for a year.
The doorbell rang. It was Grace, with Daniel, and a green salad with feta and mango. Daniel took off his trainers and charged up the stairs to cries of ‘Daniel! My maaan!’ from Josh, in an over-the-top American accent.
‘Oh, you’re a classy cow,’ said Frankie, pleased, as Grace came in. Her more domestic friend could be relied on to spruce up proceedings to a respectable standard and often supplemented Frankie’s credit card suppers with a little non-plastic yumminess. Frankie took the salad from her and put it in the fridge. ‘You know how lazy I am,’ she said. ‘You’ll be lucky if I get plates out.’
‘No problem,’ said Grace. ‘Daniel helped me make it.’
‘Did he?’ said Frankie. ‘Wow.’ Her children had helped her this evening by scattering football cards all over the sitting room floor, doing multiple wees in the toilets without flushing a single one away and trampling mud from the back garden all up the hall.
The four of them had been banished upstairs. Alice and Tilly to bed and Josh and Harry to their rooms, to do their homework until Daniel arrived. Frankie didn’t think much homework – if any – had gone on. For the last half an hour all she’d heard was distant squealing and the thwack of cardboard on cardboard. Now there was just the noise of what she called ‘thundering around’.
‘New shoes?’ said Frankie, to Imogen as she arrived. She’d brought Prosecco and a huge smile and was wearing a stunning pair of black and white court shoes, the ones with the black tips on the toes and the nice stitching. ‘Uh-oh! Got something to tell us? You always buy new shoes when you’ve got a new man! You’re not doing the dirty on us, are you?’
‘No!’ said Imogen, stepping into Frankie’s hall and nearly tripping over a skateboard that had been left on the floor. ‘How dare you! No, I’m going to Ascot in a few weeks. I’m wearing them in.’
‘Ascot?’ said Grace, casually, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen with a glass of white wine in her hand. ‘You’re going to Ascot? Which day?’
‘The 20th, the Saturday,’ sighed Imogen, with an over-exaggerated grimace. ‘Corporate thing, again, with a load of luvvies. It’ll probably be deathly dull.’
‘Will you be in a box?’ asked Grace, with a slight cough. She was fiddling with her hair and sipping her wine. She tipped the glass too quickly and some dribbled down her chin. ‘Oops,’ she said, pulling a folded tissue from the back pocket of her jeans.
‘Yeah, stuck in a stuffy, boring box with a load of screeching morons,’ replied Imogen. ‘What fun! Still the food will probably be good. Speaking of which, double pepperoni tonight, Franks?’
‘Of course,’ said Frankie. ‘Let’s see these shoes, then.’ She couldn’t wear heels – they crippled her after five minutes – but enjoyed cooing over Imogen’s. Imogen sat on a kitchen chair and held one leg aloft. Frankie ran a finger over the stitching.
‘Wow! Bloody hell, Imogen! They’re amazing.’
‘Gorgeous,’ agreed Grace.
‘Thanks,’ said Imogen, flicking her foot from left to right as she admired them. ‘If I’m going to be bored out of my brain I may as well look fab doing it.’ She grinned.
‘Hey Grace, didn’t you say you were going somewhere on the 20th of June?’ said Frankie.
‘Er, yes,’ said Grace.
‘Where you off to?’ asked Imogen, looking up.
‘Magical mystery tour,’ said Grace quietly, ‘with Taekwondo.’
‘There’s a combination of words you don’t hear every day!’ Imogen laughed. ‘How wonderfully old-fashioned! So you’ve really no idea where you’re going?’
‘None whatsoever,’ said Grace. She looked quite miserable at the prospect, thought Frankie. Why on earth was she going then?
‘I bet it’s Stratford-on-Avon,’ Frankie said, opening Imogen’s Prosecco. ‘My Nan’s Magical Mysteries were always Stratford.’
‘Yes, it probably is,’ said Grace. ‘Yes, I bet it’s Stratford.’ She smiled, but her smile looked slightly forced, Frankie noted. Still miserable over James, poor girl, she surmised. She hoped this trip would cheer her up. ‘I’ve always wanted to see where Shakespeare was born.’
‘Have you?’ said Imogen.
‘I know I’m not always at the Globe watching some up-and-coming playing a randy, naked Coriolanus,’ said Grace, ‘but I have read some Shakespeare, you know.’
‘I’m sure you have, honey,’ said Imogen, touching her lightly on the arm. ‘We’ve all read the bloody stuff. And anus is the right word.’ She giggled. ‘I’ve seen far too many naked arses with a sword in their hands. Right, Franks, what time’s our dinner turning up?’
*
‘So what have you been doing recently?’ asked Frankie, to Imogen, as she dropped plates into the dishwasher. ‘You’ve been really quiet. I haven’t been receiving my usual stream of hysterical texts.’
‘That’s because I’m not dating, darling,’ said Imogen, sitting at the table and examining her nails. They looked newly done – a soft peach, immaculate. ‘It’s just been work, work, work. I’ve been throwing myself into it feet first.’
‘Difficult, in the shoes you wear, I should imagine.’ Frankie smiled. ‘Is it all still going well?’
‘Oh tremendously well.’ Imogen beamed. ‘Marcia’s a scream and I’ve got loads of clients now.’
‘No new hunky actors you’ve been tempted by?’
‘No. Ugh, God no! Absolutely no one I’m remotely tempted by. Remotely.’ Frankie and Grace raised their eyebrows at each other. Was the lady protesting too much?
‘Does that mean there is?’ teased Frankie
.
‘No!’ said Imogen, slightly huffily. Frankie let it lie. She knew that Imogen never dated actors. Why would she start now, when she was on a Man Ban?
‘How’s it all going with you, Grace?’ said Frankie. ‘With James? Is he still being unreliable or have things calmed down now?’
‘No, he’s still being unreliable,’ said Grace. She took Frankie’s plates out of the dishwasher, rinsed them, then put them back in again. Frankie let her get on with it. She knew such stuff was a comfort to her.
‘He’s such a loser,’ said Imogen. ‘You’re feeling better about him now though, right?’ she asked. ‘It’s been, what, four months?’
‘Much, much better, thank you,’ said Grace.
‘Is the Taekwondo helping?’ enquired Frankie. ‘You know, beating six bells out of people. Or chopping them with your hands, or whatever it is you do.’
‘Yes,’ said Grace, smiling. ‘Chopping people with my hands is really helping.’
‘How was the tournament?’ Frankie said.
‘The tournament?’
‘Wasn’t there a tournament a few Saturdays ago? You were out all afternoon.’
‘You been twitching curtains again?’
‘Twitching my nets? You know I’m always twitching my nets!’
‘Yes, the tournament was great, thank you.’
‘Let’s see some moves, then.’
‘What?’
‘Show us some moves!’
‘No! Don’t be silly! I’m not showing you any moves!’
‘Come on,’ said Frankie, standing up and grabbing Grace by the hands. ‘Hi-ya!’ she shouted, like Miss Piggy and started doing kung-fu fighting arm waving.
‘No!’ insisted Grace, quite firmly. She shook Frankie’s hands off hers. ‘I’m going to the loo.’
‘I still can’t see Grace doing martial arts, can you?’ queried Frankie, once she’d left the room.
‘It’s self-defence, isn’t it?’ said Imogen, shrugging. ‘It’s exactly what she needs.’
‘Mmm,’ said Frankie. ‘I guess so. So, have you really not met anyone, or not even got your eye on anyone?’
‘Frankie, I have no plans to let the sisterhood down!’ said Imogen. ‘I’m a new woman these days. A new woman with no man. And I’ve never felt better.’ Imogen tossed her hair like a marauding pony and gulped down a mouthful of wine.
Such strong women, Frankie thought. Grace with her Taekwondo, Imogen with her fabulous new job and new lease of life. Strong, single women. And there was her with her guilty little secret. Wouldn’t they be shocked if she told them about Hugh! The man with more than a passing resemblance to Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility (she was working her way through all the Austen hotties, in her mind) who she snogged with abandon every other Sunday. Notice how no one asked her if she’d met a new man. She was tempted to put it out there, just for the shock value.
‘How are kids coping with everything?’ asked Imogen. ‘Are they happy with the whole alternate weekends thing?’
‘They seem to be,’ replied Frankie. She hadn’t noticed any problems since she and Rob had split. Alice and Tilly were as happy and as loving as ever and there’d been a parents’ evening at Harry and Josh’s school on Monday night, and they were both doing really well. Extremely well, in fact. It had all run late as it always did – she and Rob had to stand by the stage underneath a mural of The Great War and chat for twenty minutes while they waited for Miss Capron to stop talking to Alfie Donaldson’s mum. They’d grinned at each other a couple of times while the teachers talked to them about their boys’ achievements. Rob had winked at her when Mr Butler said, for the fifth time, that Josh was ‘spirited’. Once upon a time they would have held hands at these evenings, although those days were a long, long time ago. ‘No problems at home, no problems at school.’ Frankie was proud how well her children had adjusted to it, actually. Although they could still drive her mad.
‘Well that’s fab.’
Grace came back from the loo. ‘I’m doing one of those wedding fairs this weekend,’ she announced.
‘The ones James wouldn’t let you do?’ said Imogen. ‘How come?’
Grace had often mentioned how James insisted on weekends being for ‘family time’ and he didn’t want her working, and how Gideon had always been sniffy about it but secretly thoroughly enjoyed being a martyr by doing the wedding fairs on his own. ‘Gideon’s got to go to a civil ceremony in Cornwall. He’s reluctantly handing over the reins to me.’
‘How exciting!’
‘Not really. I’m really nervous. I won’t have a clue what I’m doing!’
‘Oh, you’ll be fine!’ said Frankie. ‘Do you want me to pop in? For moral support? I’m on my own this weekend. I can start raving about the hats and pretending to buy them all or something? Come with me, Imogen, it’ll be a scream!’
‘I can’t, I’m afraid,’ said Imogen. ‘I promised I’d take Mum into town.’
‘Ah, shame. Well I can drop in, can’t I, Grace?’
‘I’d love it if you did,’ said Grace, although Frankie thought Grace looked less than enthusiastic. ‘I’m feeling so jittery about it.’
‘Perfect. I can pretend to be a bossy older bride and create a bit of a buzz. Right, I reckon the pizza’s gone down by now. Shall we break out the chocolates?’
Chapter Eighteen: Grace
James would have hated this, Grace thought, as she climbed the steps to The Finch Rooms with several huge bags of hat boxes and cellophane-wrapped bridal headpieces and fascinators. When they’d got married, he’d half-heartedly gone along with the whole wedding planning thing – florists and caterers and photography studios and cake-makers – but had hardly thrown himself into it. Far ‘too girly’, he would have said, about wedding fairs. ‘Full of giddy women with no taste and too much money to spend.’
She was glad it was being held here and not at some giant aircraft hangar of a conference centre. The Finch Rooms was a large Georgian house, set in picturesque grounds, with dozens of small, fabulously decorated rooms for people to wander in and out of. It was a perfect venue for small weddings, although a marquee could be attached at the back of the house for larger receptions. She remembered she’d looked round it when she and James had got married, before they’d plumped for Huntingdon Manor.
Directed to a small drawing room at the rear of the house – a carpeted square with a large sash window and duck egg wallpaper – she began setting up. She’d brought a dozen or so hatstands, but also utilised the gorgeous shelving units either side of the huge marble fireplace. Gideon had never trusted her with the displays in the shop. She always had to stand by as he executed his artistic flair, and coo enough times to satisfy him as he arranged and rotated hats and headpieces and faffed with ribbons and bits of lace. Now it was her turn, and she didn’t think she’d done a bad job. She stepped back and admired her handiwork. Actually, she’d done a great job. She could create a beautiful display of hats.
Grace’s silent moment of satisfaction was short-lived. A girl wearing a short sixties-style dress and black opaque tights, despite the balmy June weather, bashed noisily into the room with a folded-up table under one arm and a massive long, flat cardboard box under the other. She had dyed crimson hair scraped into a top-knot and appeared to be wearing slippers.
‘Hi, I’m Nancy,’ she said breathlessly. She expertly opened up the table with her knee, dropped the box to the floor and began to pull from it large pieces of lace and sheaths of gorgeous cream and white embossed wedding stationery. She fanned out the stationery on the lace then studded the arrangement with artfully placed fountain pens. It was a very romantic-looking display.
‘Your stationery is beautiful,’ said Grace, walking over and taking a closer look.
‘Thanks. People seem to like it.’
‘It must sell itself!’
‘Well, I have to do a bit of sales patter. Spin the whole marriage is wonderful line.’
She pulled a face. Grace almost wan
ted to shush her. You couldn’t speak like that at a wedding fair! ‘Oh. You don’t think it is?’
Nancy smiled wryly. ‘No! Not since my fiancé left me at the altar. But, hey, it’s fine. I went off on our honeymoon by myself and ended up spending two years backpacking around South East Asia.’
‘Oh, okay.’ Grace didn’t know what else to say.
‘But people keep doing it, don’t they? Marriage. The daft beggars. I can’t stop them, so I may as well earn a crust helping them. It’s not my fault I design incredible wedding stationary!’ She laughed. ‘Hey, I like your hats and stuff.’
‘Thank you. I’m a bit nervous. I’ve not done one of these before.’
‘Oh, you’ll be fine. Just take a deep breath and tell yourself you can do it.’ She smiled and adjusted one of her fans of envelopes, then glanced at Grace’s left hand, and her wedding ring. ‘You’re married?’ Grace realised she’d been unselfconsciously twiddling with it while they’d been talking.
‘Separated.’ There, she’d said it again. She’d said it at the school do and no one had dropped to the floor in a dead faint or clamped their hand to their mouth in horror. The headmistress hadn’t exploded in shock. Nancy looked delighted.
‘Great! It’s so much fun being single, isn’t it?’
‘I hate it, actually,’ said Grace. ‘I like being with someone.’
‘Have you got kids?’ Gosh, this woman was blunt. She had a slight accent; Grace wondered if she was Australian.
‘A son.’
‘Well, you’ll never be on your own, then.’
What a strange woman she was. ‘Actually I like having a man in my life.’
‘Oh.’ Nancy frowned. ‘Are you seeing someone?’ As though it were a huge betrayal to womankind.
‘Yes.’ Not that it was any of her business.
‘You jumped out of the frying pan into the fire?’
Grace was about to respond about it being a very nice fire and in any case it really was none of her business, when a young couple, hand in hand, came into the room and went straight to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over Nancy’s beautiful stationery. Nancy started talking to them in a new, high voice about romance and how the more expensive the card, the more sincere the wedding vows…
Year of Being Single Page 18