F Words by Sue Fenton
There was a definite atmosphere between Faye and Geoffrey; you’d have to have been back in London to miss it. Each was taking pains to talk to the rest of us, as though to show us how reasonable they were, but were ignoring each other. At one point, the rest of us having got into a good-natured debate about Jane’s Mulberry obsession (which she was taking in good part, her good humour having been restored), Faye and Geoffrey were thrown back on each other’s company and were giving each other the silent treatment. Faye was the first to break it, as she obviously had something on her mind. “We’re here together,” she snapped. “The least you can do is try not to show me up. Were you trying to make a fool of me?”Geoffrey caught my curious eye at this point and kept mum, but I was massively intrigued: what had he done, apart from being a general, all-round knob? Catherine had heard it too and we came to the conclusion, in the lav, that Geoffrey must have spent too long the other night before talking to Maeve, the artist, who we agreed was rather attractive with her Titian red curly locks.“I don’t get it though,” said Catherine, puzzled. “Faye’s not the jealous sort, she really isn’t. There’s no way Geoffrey could pull a bird like Maeve anyway, even if he wanted to, and Faye knows it. “
I had to agree. Maeve was open, articulate, and rather “hippy” if you know what I mean – quite the opposite of the prim and anally retentive Geoffrey. Plus she’d told us she is embroiled in an unconventional but passionate relationship (“twice a night unless things go horribly wrong!”) with an artists’ supplies salesman from Looe.
Even if she hadn’t been getting it twice nightly there was no way a woman of her calibre would look twice at an oaf like Geoffrey. No, it had to be something else that had prompted the Faye/Geoffrey breach…
…
Last chapter
For readers who haven‘t been paying attention to the recent chaotic events, let’s tally up the total of sorted and sundered hearts…
Sorted
Jane and Pirate Pete
Kim and Shy Giles
Geoffrey and Olivier
Sundered
Michaela and Ian
Me and Dan
Faye and Geoffrey
Jane and Jonathan
As Michaela, Faye and I sat gazing into our pints that night, rather too shell-shocked for much conversation, I got to thinking that there was something we all had in common. Sorted or sundered, we had all secretly been looking for a hero. I don’t mean a beefy guy who rescues golden-haired toddlers from burning houses – though that would be good too – I mean someone you can admire and respect, someone who would, well, look after us. In a way you need to admire your partner for them to bring out the best in you – because unless they give their best, you can never really give your best.
Had we really admired our respective partners? Geoffrey was an arrogant, emotionally disconnected know-it-all homosexual, Dan a self-absorbed, stressy, lazy alcoholic, Jonathan a drug-dealing narcissist. And Ian had been shagging two other women for years. Had we really admired them, believed them to be our heroes, or were they and their faults simply our comfort blanket, our security, our protection from the scariness of being alone?
They say “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. Would the devils of being alone be worse than the devils of our previous partners? I posed the question to Faye. She couldn’t answer it either. We decided there were some things we simply couldn’t know. Emily Bronte wrote of the North Yorkshire moors “what have those lonely mountains worth revealing? More glory and more grief than we can tell” and I rather felt that way about the Cornish cliffs.
What we could tell was that outside the gusty winds were scudding the clouds around, the seagulls were crying and swooping across the harbour, the moon was coming up, the lights of the little village were twinkling in the cottage windows. The village lay cosy and protected in its little cleft. By an unspoken decision we got our anoraks and handbags and set off for the pub.
ENDS
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I want to read your unpublished chick lit!!!!!
P.S. Thanks for having me! xx
Posted by Jane Crawford | September 28, 2011, 2:42 pmBlimey, are you sure? I’ll have to see if I can find it. Trouble is, I’ve got a beginning and an end but not so much going on in the middle. Just forwarded you info on novel-writing month – maybe time to work on the rest of it!
xx
Posted by Sue Fenton | October 1, 2011, 11:09 am