by Isabel Wolff
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I really didn’t notice and, in any case, I’ve been busy as well, thank God. No time to dwell on you-know-who.’
‘Hasn’t Dominic called you?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said, and a wave of rage – or something like it – swept over me at the mention of his name.
‘Are you going to call him?’
‘No! Yes. No. Perhaps. I don’t know. No. No. Almost certainly not …Am I making sense?’
Helen nodded, and squeezed my arm. We rejoined the others in the sitting room, and everyone arranged themselves on the sofa and chairs. Then Amber kicked off with the Ian McEwan.
‘Now, this is a clever book,’ she began, ‘with a satisfyingly ambiguous title. Enduring Love is about both the love that endures – the love between the protagonist, Joe Rose, and his girlfriend Clarissa – and a love that has to be endured, i.e. the unhealthy love felt for Joe by Jed Parry, a homosexual madman who becomes obsessed with him. Now –’
‘I once had a man who was obsessed with me,’ Joan the astrophysicist cut in. ‘I hardly knew the guy,’ she went on. ‘I’d taught him for a term on quasars, but he was convinced I was interested in him and kept on ringing me up.’
‘Please, Joan,’ said Amber, ‘I haven’t finished.’
‘Wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
‘As I was saying,’ Amber persisted, ‘Jed Parry develops an unexplained homo-erotic passion for Joe –’
‘I had to change my number in the end.’
‘– an obsession which threatens to destroy Joe’s peace of mind –’
‘It can work the other way too,’ said Cathy, the nuclear engineer. ‘A female colleague of mine was obsessed with a doctor,’ she explained. ‘She was mad about him – she told us all about it. She got herself taken on at his practice so that she’d have an excuse to see him. And apparently she kept turning up in his surgery, behaving like a complete Munchausen, inventing all these symptoms, including – get this – radiation sickness from her work on Sizewell B! But she admitted she just couldn’t help it because he was so attractive and so nice and –’
‘Look, can we stick to the book, please,’ said Amber acidly.
‘Anyway, he got married not long after, and that’s what made her stop.’
Everyone tut-tutted at Cathy’s story, except for Amber, who raised the book theatrically, and began to expound her thesis again.
‘The opening chapter is described with heart-pounding tension. Five strangers are brought together as they struggle to hold down a hot-air balloon in which a little boy is trapped. Now the balloonist –’
‘I once went out with a man who liked hot-air ballooning!’ exclaimed Jackie the geneticist. ‘We met at a DNAwayday. I went up with him quite a few times, but, to be honest, I didn’t really like it. The noise from the burners is bloody frightening, it’s like dragon’s breath and – ooh, sorry Amber.’
‘– as I was saying,’ Amber carried on, ‘the balloonist himself is saved, and the child comes safely down to ground a short while later. But in the meantime one of the rescuers, still holding on to the rope, has fallen 300 feet to his death. This catastrophe kick-starts Jed Parry’s mania for Joe, a mania which places enormous stress on Joe and his partner, Clarissa. The book’s really about a couple put under pressure by the intrusive presence of an outsider.’
‘Well, that would be enough to break anyone up,’ said Frances, the brilliant lawyer. ‘When I was going out with Frank, my ex, something similar happened to us. You see, he had a colleague who he’d been quite friendly with, and when Frank and I got together this bloke just hung around all the time, and we could never get rid of him. Frank didn’t want to hurt the guy’s feelings because they’d been good friends, but when you start going out with someone you really want a little privacy, and this bloke, Adam, just didn’t seem to understand that, so –’
By now everyone had stripped to their emotional underpants. No one was listening to Amber, and no one seemed to give a damn about the book. A discussion quickly developed about relationships, and how to conduct them without alienating your friends, and how you need your friends because at the end of the day the relationship may break up and then where would we all be if we’d neglected our pals?
‘Look,’ said Amber, furiously, after five minutes of this, ‘the purpose of this reading group is to discuss books, not blokes!’
Everyone suddenly stopped talking, and stifled guilty giggles.
‘Oh, OK, Amber,’ said Joan good-naturedly. ‘Well, my chosen book is Armadillo by William Boyd. Now, William Boyd is one of the –’
‘– tastiest-looking blokes in the business!’ said Jackie the geneticist with a drunken giggle. ‘He is,’ she went on. ‘He’s absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. I went to one of his readings once. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.’
‘Carry on, please, Joan,’ said Amber, bossily.
‘Anyway, Armadillo is a comedy, although it’s darker than A Good Man in Africa, or Stars and Bars. Now, the hero of Armadillo works in insurance,’ she went on. At this I thought of Dominic, with a dreadful pang. ‘His name’s Lorimer Black,’ Joan continued. ‘It’s his job to sniff out fraudulent insurance claims, and to negotiate settlements by a mixture of persuasion, bribery and threat. He’s a loss-adjuster.’
‘I went out with a loss-adjuster once!’ announced Frances. ‘He was terribly nice. But he lived in Pinner and I’m in Kentish Town, and I just couldn’t face the thought of having to go right to the end of the Metropolitan line to see him.’
‘God, no, that would be a drag,’ said Cathy. A heated debate then took hold with the speed of a forest fire, as they all expatiated upon the importance in London of living close to your lover.
‘– No more than two postcodes away.’
‘– or on the same Tube line, at least.’
‘– you can end up spending a fortune on cabs.’
‘– or sit fuming in traffic for hours.’
‘Look, everyone,’ said Amber, her temper fraying like an old Persian rug. ‘What about William Boyd?’
To be honest, I didn’t really mind about William Boyd, or Ian McEwan, or any of them. I was tired after working all day, then cooking supper, so I just let it all wash over me. It didn’t bother me in the slightest that these clever women wanted to talk about men. Nor did I care if I didn’t even get to talk about my chosen book. But Amber picked on me next.
‘OK, Minty, your turn. And I think you want to talk about Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.’
‘Er, yes. OK.’ I sat forward on the sofa. ‘Well, you’ve probably all read it?’ Everyone nodded. ‘So I’ll only be saying what you already know. Basically it’s a war-time love story, set on the Greek island of Cephalonia. It’s-’
‘I went to Cephalonia four years ago,’ said Frances, ‘with Eric. He was the one I went out with before I went out with the one I went out with before Frank.’
‘I see,’ everyone said.
‘We had a lovely time,’ she went on. ‘But we broke up not long after, because out of the blue he heard from an old girlfriend of his, and she told him that she was single again, and would love to see him and so, well, it was curtains for me!’
‘What happened?’ asked everyone, with the exception of Amber, who was rolling her eyes.
‘They got married,’ said Frances with a good-natured shrug. ‘I guess it’s one of those things. That’s life. I’m just doing their divorce for them, actually.’
‘Oh, nice,’ we all crooned. Amber shot me a get-on-with-the-bloody-book look.
‘Anyway, as I was saying,’ I went on, ‘Captain Corelli is an unusual mix of carnage and high comedy. It’s about occupation and takeover. The central relationship is the unconsummated affair between Antonio Corelli, the musical Italian captain, and the doctor’s daughter Pelagia. The novel has a Latin American exuberance, and some of the language is very complex. I’m not sure about the way Louis de Bernières ends the book. There’s a long coda which pro
vides a sort of happy ending –’
‘Well, we’re all looking for a sort of happy ending,’ said Joan. ‘Whatever that means. But it doesn’t necessarily mean wedding bells any more, does it?’
That was it – Louis de Bernières was drowned out by yet more animated gossip about men, and an impassioned discussion about the relative merits of marriage.
‘I GIVE UP!’ Amber shouted suddenly. ‘A highbrow evening of intellectual stimulation seems to have degenerated into a HEN PARTY instead! Obviously, none of you wants to talk about books.’
There was a shocked silence, and then Helen spoke.
‘Well, actually,’ she said, ‘I do.’ It was the first time she’d addressed the group all evening. ‘I’ve brought a book with me,’ she went on, as she opened her bag, ‘and I think you all ought to know about it, because it’s brilliant.’ She held up one of these tall, slim paperbacks that suggest a serious sort of read. The title was Pios, and the author was Joseph Bridges. It was by Joe. Joe who we’d met in Paris.
‘Pios is about the relationship between an autistic boy and his dog,’ she said. ‘It’s set in Poland just after the war. It’s really about the way animals have a unique ability to help heal the damage done to the human mind. The way they can open psychological doors. It’s acutely observed,’ she went on, ‘it’s also beautifully written, and I think you’d have to have a heart of stone not to find it very moving.’ Everyone had gone completely quiet.
‘It sounds wonderful,’ said Cathy. ‘Let me write the title down. Pios?’
‘It’s pronounced “Pea-yoss”,’ said Helen, as she handed Cathy the book. ‘Apparently it just means “dog” in Polish.’
‘Have you heard of him?’ I asked Amber – just out of curiosity, of course.
‘Oh yes, vaguely,’ she replied, dismissively. ‘I can’t imagine it’s any good.’ Well, she would say that. I’m afraid she often gives debit where credit is due.
‘It’s superb,’ Helen corrected her calmly, though I could see that her face had gone red. ‘It says here that it was short-listed for two literary prizes.’
‘Doesn’t mean a thing,’ said Amber crossly. ‘It probably just means he was friends with one of the judges.’
‘No, it’s truly excellent,’ Helen insisted, and then she looked at me. ‘I think he’s a writer worth getting to know.’
Ah. So that was it. That was why I hadn’t heard from her. She was keen on Joe, but had been too shy to tell me. Or she didn’t want to tell me that she’d fallen in love, and was happy, after what I’d just been through. But that would explain why she’d bought his book. It also explained why she’d been so keen for us to play table football in Paris. She’d fancied him. She’d said he was attractive, and that’s why she’d insisted on playing. I cast my mind back to that day. I was still in such shock then that perhaps my memory wasn’t that reliable. But I remember we’d all had a beer together after the game, and when I came back from the loo I did think that Helen and Joe looked rather ensconced. And why not? Just because I didn’t want to give him my number didn’t mean she couldn’t. She obviously liked him. Well …fine. And that’s why she’d been a bit elusive, because whenever Helen likes someone, she tends to go rather quiet and I don’t hear from her for weeks.
‘Have you seen Joe again then?’ I asked her, casually, a little while later, as Amber showed the others out.
‘He phoned a couple of times from Paris,’ she said. ‘And he’s coming back to London next month. He’s really nice, you know, Minty,’ she added, pointedly. ‘I’d lend this to you, but I haven’t quite finished it.’
‘That’s OK. I’ll buy a copy. It does look good. Anyway, give me a ring soon,’ I said as she picked up her bag and made for the door.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said, with a slight hesitation. ‘But I’m really a bit …involved at the moment.’
‘Well …whenever you feel like it,’ I said.
‘Christ, that was a disaster!’ said Amber, as I started to stack the dishwasher. ‘A combined intellect the size of a small planet, and all they could talk about was blokes!’
‘But that’s what happens when women get together,’ I said. ‘However brilliant they are. I bet you if you were to put two Nobel prize-winning women physicists together, they’d probably end up talking about men.’
‘It’s pathetic!’ said Amber, crossly. ‘Honestly, Mint, it was a complete waste of an evening, not to mention a lot of hard work!’ She stamped upstairs, while I finished clearing the kitchen. ‘You know,’ she called out, ‘it was such a disaster I’m not going to damn well bother again!’
‘I’m afraid I’m just not going to bother,’ wrote Citronella Pratt in the Sunday Semaphore. ‘I’m just not going to bother with my single women friends any more. I mean, yes, of course they have their good points,’ she continued. ‘They make marvellous godmothers, for example. Sienna’s got six, and they all spoil her to bits. Constantly coming round with lovely presents. But then she’s such an appealing child. I also think it’s wonderful the way single women will always come to a dinner party at the very last minute; and they never complain when I have to sit them next to some rather dreary and unattractive man. So don’t think I don’t appreciate my single women friends. I do. However, I’m afraid they all commit one cardinal sin,’ she went on mournfully, ‘and it gets me down. They always end up complaining about the fact that they don’t have husbands. It’s really so boring and depressing. And although I’m very sorry for them and I think it’s very sad, it’s really very wearing having to listen to that all the time. They don’t do it openly, of course. Not in so many words. But I can see through them. Because there they are, chatting away “happily” to me about their promotion, or their seat on the board, or their books, or their trips to Bhutan. And naturally I listen very politely, and only occasionally look at my watch. But I’m afraid I know the truth: underneath all that so-called “success” and “adventure” they’re desperately miserable that they don’t have what I’ve got. And they’re all positively drooling over Andrew. But really, listening to all these desperate, sad, single women is a bore for us ecstatically happily married MOO’s, or Mothers of One! (Sienna’s just learned to say “convergence criteria”, by the way.) So whenever my single women friends ring up now I’m inclined to reach straight for the “Please Leave A Message After The Tone” button. Because there are enough sad things in this world, without having to listen to one’s unmarried women friends droning on about their desperate, unfulfilled lives. I’m sure you all agree.’
I was reading this mesmerising stuff in the office as I prepared for my piece on fertility treatment. I’d interviewed two women who were on the waiting list for IVF at the Lister Hospital. I’d also been to see a woman whose three children had all started life through egg donation. And I was going to interview the famous Professor Godfrey Barnes. But first, I had to get a quick quote from Citronella.
‘Why can’t she come down here?’ I complained to Jack. ‘It’s a drag having to go up to Hampstead. If she wants to feature on our airwaves then she should get her saggy arse down to City Road.’
‘Minty!’ Jack exclaimed with an astonished expression. ‘It’s not like you to say something like that.’
I stopped, and thought to myself, no, it’s not like me. It’s not like me at all – whatever ‘me’ is these days.
‘Mind you,’ Jack added judiciously, ‘I entirely agree. But unfortunately it’s written into her contract that we go to her, and we just can’t afford to alienate Mrs Happy Bot, especially not at the moment.’
So a couple of hours later I found myself standing on her doorstep again. The beautiful Françoise showed me in, and gave me what I thought looked like a conspiratorial smile.
‘How’s the BMW?’ I said mischievously.
‘Ze BMW? What BMW? I just have an old bike.’
‘Oh. My mistake,’ I said.
‘Hello, Arabella,’ said Citronella.
‘Er, it’s Araminta, actually.’
>
‘Now, did you read my piece this week?’
‘Er, no. Afraid I didn’t,’ I lied. ‘Been rather busy.’
She was holding her handbag – it looked like a padlock – as she ushered me into the study.
‘Tea, please, Françoise!’ she called out, with a smart clap of her sausagey hands. As I got my tape-recorder ready we chatted in a general way about the statistics for infertility – one in six women trying for a baby are receiving treatment at any one time. We talked about the known causes – blocked fallopian tubes, abnormal sperm, ovary disorders and the effects of alcohol and cigarettes. But what I really needed from Citronella were some comments about the moral arguments surrounding fertility treatment. Is it right for doctors to play God, bringing about by science what might best be left to nature? And what about the ethics of egg and sperm donation, and the risks of multiple births? I unravelled my microphone lead and pressed ‘record’.
‘It is so sad that there are so many women who are unable to have children,’ Citronella began, with a sympathetic smile. ‘And of course for most women who seek treatment, only a tiny number will actually conceive.’
‘Well, 15 per cent,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t call that tiny, compared with a natural conception rate of about 30 per cent.’
‘Oh.’ She looked displeased.
‘And in fact some clinics, like Godfrey Barnes’, have a success rate as high as 25 per cent.’
Citronella ignored this, apparently preferring, like Amber, to eliminate the positive.
‘Now, I’m going to let the listeners in on a little secret,’ she carried on. ‘My own little Sienna didn’t, well …happen straight away.’
‘Didn’t she?’ I asked politely, as I stifled an urge to yawn. I really couldn’t have cared less.
‘No,’ she said. ‘She didn’t. And so I myself suffered, for a while, the agony of childlessness.’ Her face had now assumed an expression of heroic forbearance.
‘Oh dear.’
‘But for me, the solution was not a test tube or a Petri dish,’ she declared. ‘It was not a syringe full of sinister, hi-tech drugs. No. For me, the solution was – THIS!’ Suddenly Citronella had whipped out a red frilly corset with matching suspenders and was holding it aloft. It looked like something out of the Folies Bergères, painted by Toulouse-Lautrec after nine pints of absinthe. ‘This is what we used to conceive Sienna,’ she went on, laughing coyly. ‘Let me describe it for the listeners …’