Bachelor Boys (4 page)

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Authors: Kate Saunders

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“We don't want them to show their natural selves. We want them to pretend they're normal.”
Phoebe giggled. “Seriously—”
“I'm being very serious. Will you at least consider telling the boys what we're up to?”
“I'll think about it,” she said. I knew she wouldn't. Her romantic mind was made up. “Now let's do a bit about Ben.” She turned a page of her notebook. “That really should be easy. Benedict Henry Darling—age twenty-nine—professional concert pianist.”
How Phoebe liked that word “professional,” and how very inappropriate it was. Much as I loved Fritz and Ben, I was tempted to snatch the notebook and set the record straight. Fritz was an unemployed actor, and absolutely sex-mad. Ben was an unemployed musician, a bit of a mummy's boy and also sex-mad. Both were best known down at the dole office in Camden Town. As far as I could see, both passed their days in idyllic idleness. How on earth was I supposed to find respectable girlfriends for these two lotus-eaters?
Phoebe gazed pensively into the fire. “I wonder if we should put about Fritz being a doctor?”
“You could say he
qualified
as a doctor,” I said. “But that was only because Jimmy would've mashed him if he hadn't. He's never actually performed as a doctor—unless you count doing locum work in Cornwall so he can go surfing. I think you should leave it out altogether.”
“Do you?”
I reached for another macaroon, able to appreciate it now that I was in a state of irritation. “Look, before we go any further, what about their current love lives? Haven't they already got girlfriends?”
A thoughtful line indented Phoebe's brow. “To be honest, I'm not quite sure. They're both rather secretive about who they're seeing. I think
Fritz still goes out with Madeleine from time to time—but she's married to someone else, and doesn't show any sign of leaving her husband. So that means he's technically free.”
I was sorry to broach this painful subject, but it had to be done. “And what about Ben? Is he still entangled with that old bag?”
She sighed. “If you mean Lavinia Appleton, he does see her sometimes. But I really don't think it's anything more than friendship.”
“Hmmm. I bet it was Lavinia who got him that ticket for Alfred Brendel.”
“Well, yes, it was—but her husband hates music, and—”
“Face it, Phoebe,” I said, “they're a pair of disasters.”
She smiled suddenly. “I left something out. We should have put it first—they're both gorgeously handsome. You're not going to argue with that, I hope?”
No. It was as true as taxes. Phoebe's boys were, indeed, gorgeously handsome. It was the greatest (perhaps the only) point in their favor. I knew that several of my female friends would be quite happy to overlook all the other stuff on the strength of it.
Ben was tall, pale and dreamy. He had Phoebe's troubling dark eyes, and used to drift into the dole office in a green velvet jacket, like Percy Shelley. He was romantic and soulful, and still relied quite heavily on his flowing dark ringlets to keep him in free concert tickets.
Fritz was darker. He had Jimmy's beautiful voice, and a high color beneath clear olive skin. His black eyes snapped like firecrackers. He had immense energy, and rather scary charm. I had once seen him in evening dress (for the party after his girlfriend's wedding), and thought he looked like an old-fashioned picture of the devil.
But all my female friends swore they wanted more than good looks in a man. And the biggest talking-up campaign in the world couldn't make Fritz and Ben into anything but expensive luxuries. Ben was a wonderful musician, who studied at the Royal Academy of Music. He was, however, too “sensitive” to perform or to teach. Mostly he sat at home, driving the neighbors crazy by playing loud Scriabin in the small hours, on the grand piano his parents had bought him for his twenty-first birthday.
As for Fritz, he was the very worst sort of unemployed actor. Being handsome should have guaranteed him some sort of a career, but he was
dreadfully pretentious, perhaps to mask his glaring lack of talent. We had been at Oxford together, and I had watched him being talentless in several college productions. His Iago was particularly wince-making. He spent the whole time facing upstage and muttering with his hands in his pockets. He was a perfectly good medical student, so what on earth had made him give up medicine? What wicked charlatan had persuaded him to act for his living?
But I knew I was being too hard on him. I should be honest. The fact is, all through my teens and early twenties, I had a major crush on Fritz. He played a starring role in my dreams for years. I don't mean only the sexy dreams—I mean fantasies about impressing people. Fritz was always present, being impressed and later declaring undying love, in every one of my dreams of future glory. In those dreams I accepted the Booker Prize, the editorship of the
Guardian
and the school cup for growing candytuft before large crowds that inevitably contained my father and Fritz.
Deep in my memory lay our one, solitary encounter. It was never mentioned by either of us, and I suspected Fritz had forgotten. Why shouldn't he forget? It belonged to another era. We had just finished our A levels, and the Darlings—typically—threw a party. I remember feeling tipsy and euphoric and unusually bold. I was outside, in the warm summer garden, beside the climbing frame. Fritz appeared out of the dusk, and silently stood beside me. I remember feeling slightly sick with nerves, wondering if he could see my pulse hammering in my neck. We had a long, breathless moment of staring at each other, as if seeing for the first time, then Fritz took my face between his hot hands and kissed me, and when his tongue slid into my mouth I nearly passed out. I don't know what might have happened, if dear Ben had not suddenly erupted into the garden at the head of a conga line.
That was the end of my kiss. At the time, I was sure there would be another. We promised each other that we would meet at Oxford. But then Fritz went off backpacking in Italy, I went to New York for a tense few weeks with my father, and by the time we actually got to Oxford at the end of the summer, we had missed the moment. Fritz was a theater star and sex symbol, and I was an obscure, earnest student of literature. No matter how hard I tried to impress him (for example, by constantly mentioning the campaigning magazine I had started, to keep my college
women-only), he would only see me as little Grimble from next door. I'd assumed I'd be running into him constantly, but I was lucky to get even a sight of him. Sometimes he'd shout to me from across the road. Occasionally, he would buy me and Annabel a drink (or, less occasionally, allow us to buy him one).
Frankly, I was miffed. My wounded pride healed any damage done to my heart. I do remember how galling it was to meet Fritz around the town with one stunning girlfriend after another. I never stood a chance. I was sensible enough to acknowledge this before I made a fool of myself. I hate looking like a fool.
Sitting with Phoebe that evening, I pitied my younger self for being dazzled by appearances. Fritz had met Matthew, and called him “Moose-face,” but this was grossly unfair. Matthew was simply a different style of man. And anyway, handsome is as handsome does. The old crush could still make my pulse miss a beat, but I dismissed it as mere chemistry.
My feelings for Matthew went so much deeper, I told myself. If there were more men like Matthew, my lovely female friends would not be singing “Dinner for One, Please James.” I decided that there was only one way to proceed with Phoebe's plan. I had to make Matthew my template for the new, marriageable Darlings.
“
I
t won't be easy,” Betsy said next morning. “Finding the girls might take months, and then you'll have to persuade them to get married. But you can't ignore a dying wish, can you? Maybe you should pay a couple of girls to pretend?”
I laughed. “I'll hold that idea in reserve, but I don't think we'll need it. Fritz and Ben aren't that bad.”
“Oh, no.” Betsy handed me a mug of tea, brewed in her steamy glory-hole beside the filing cabinet. “Don't get me wrong, I think they're both lovely. I only meant that girls seem to expect so much these days. My generation wasn't so fussy.”
“Sally had a huge crush on Ben when we were at school,” I said, suddenly remembering. “I don't suppose she'd consider—”
“Certainly not,” Betsy said promptly. “You leave my daughters out of it. I can't afford any more idle men in my family.”
“Fair enough,” I said. Betsy is married to a good-hearted but incredibly unsuccessful novelist. In between dropping babies, she'd spent her entire married life working to support this man. I felt she had suffered enough.
“But I'll help in any other way I can,” she assured me. “I'm fond of Phoebe. And if there are any spare candidates left over, you can always send them to Jonah. He hasn't had a girlfriend for ages. He's starting to go bald, so he can't afford to hang about. Have you come up with any suitable names?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, let me know when you do.” Betsy slotted her reading glasses back on her nose, and turned her attention back to laying out the children's page on the computer.
I stared anxiously at the unfinished article on my own screen. I had lied to Betsy. Of course I had thought of suitable brides for Fritz and Ben. The problem was that they were my dearest friends. I had tried to think of women I didn't like, because it seemed cruel to throw my eligible friends away on the Brothers Darling. But I really did love them, and I wanted them to have the nicest possible wives. In the end, I decided that forgetting all scruples and going for the best was my only chance of success.
Naturally, the first person I thought of was Annabel. But was any man good enough for her?
Annabel Levett is my best friend. We've known each other since we were six. I sat next to her throughout my school career, from infants' playground to sixth-form common room. We went to the same Oxford college. Every right-thinking woman has a best friend like Annabel—someone who miraculously combines being uncannily similar to her, and wildly different. Annabel and I were busy people, but we managed to meet at least once a week. At work we bombarded each other with e-mails. We talked constantly on the phone. The pity of it is that there will never be a man I get on with so beautifully. I can't remember how it felt not to know her.
Annabel is tall and willowy, with unfairly luscious breasts and long, straight blond hair. (Am I envious? Always—a best friend must be slightly enviable.) She has a guileless, dimpled smile and great trusting blue eyes. Part of her brain is excellent. She got a first in PPE, and a job in a merchant bank, and was constantly being promoted.
Sadly, however, the part of Annabel's brain that concerns the opposite sex is scrambled egg. Men can do anything with her. Here is an example of Annabel's silliness regarding men.
When we were eighteen, she fell madly in love with a very nasty unwashed poet (poets are scum, by the way; this is the first piece of wisdom I shall impart to my daughters). This nasty poet had a nasty flat in Holloway. One morning, he lifted his head off the pillow to remark that he fancied a kipper. He then rolled over and went back to sleep.
Annabel longed to satisfy her beloved's craving, but there wasn't a
penny in the house. So she went out into the streets and begged the money from passersby. Let's have that again, in italics.
She begged to get kippers for her boyfriend.
She had a charming but unreliable father, and I think this is what made her such a half-wit about romance. When I felt she was getting too silly, I used to say, in a warning voice, “Begging for kippers!”—this being our code for stupid things you do to make a man like you.
Annabel's professional success had a terrible effect on her romantic life. At the time of Phoebe's idea she was head of arbitrage and earned a fortune, but she hadn't had a single boyfriend since her last-but-one promotion. Matthew said men were put off when a woman was too highflying. In vain did I protest that out of office hours Annabel was a dippy blonde who begged for kippers. Matthew said this was canceled out by the ball-breaking salary. The poor thing spent every waking moment that did not involve arbitrage (sorry, but I've never found out exactly what this is) yearning for romance.
The great question was, could I bring myself to push her toward the Darlings? I realized at once—practically before the great idea was out of Phoebe's mouth—that Annabel would be a perfect mate for Fritz. She was just his type: pretty and daffy, and irresistibly drawn to scoundrels. Her inner fragility might bring out Fritz's protective side, I thought, assuming he had one. I absolutely knew that they would fancy one another, if I threw them together in the right way.
How did I know this? Well, I've sworn to be honest. Fritz and Annabel had, of course, met many times over the years. As my official best friend, she was quite a teatime fixture chez Darling. But I had put a lot of energy into keeping the two of them apart, making sure I stood between them like a kind of Chinese wall, diverting any dangerous throbs of attraction. I told myself it was to protect Annabel from the inevitable broken heart, but of course there was jealousy involved too. I still fancied Fritz myself in those days, and felt that if he were allowed to fall for Annabel, I wouldn't be able to bear it.
Things were different now, however. I was in love with Matthew, and Fritz needed a bride. Phoebe was extremely fond of Annabel, and would love to have her as a daughter-in-law. I had to work through my own mental block, and push her into Fritz's arms. How was this to be done? I wasn't
quite ready to work out the details, but I had my first candidate. Fritz was as good as married. Now I just had to dream up someone for Ben.
The names of various solvent young women floated about in my head for the rest of the day. I even wondered if a certain glamorous lady novelist, whose book we were featuring as Paperback of the Month, happened to be single. I fretted over the problem through most of the new production of
The Flying Dutchman
, which Matthew and I saw that evening. I didn't confide in Matthew, because he did not approve of Fritz and Ben. Or rather (as I told myself), he didn't understand them. I'd done my best, at that one Sunday lunch, to keep them off politics and sex. Matthew knew I was fond of them, and had kindly refrained from giving me his opinion in Technicolor, but I sensed words like “work-shy” and “immature” floating in the ether, just waiting to be uttered. I could guess what he would think of my determination to marry them off to unsuspecting young females.
The great Wagnerian chords swirled around us. Matthew leaned forward in his plush chair, frowning with concentration. I watched his blunt, fair, honest-looking profile, and felt fortunate. From time to time, he reached unseeingly for my thigh and gave it a warm squeeze. After the opera, to my delight, he escorted me home in a taxi. His early meeting had been canceled, opening an unexpected window for sexual activity. Without a clean shirt to his name, the reckless devil stayed the night. We had glorious sex, and I fell asleep blissfully curled against his back. This was the real, essential point of existence, I thought, as I drifted off. Sod the career. Having a warm back to curl against was the only kind of success that mattered.
 
The following day was the day the magazine went to press. Our cramped Edwardian offices in Dover Street were a comparative hive of activity, and I was annoyed when my friend Honor Chappell called “for a chat.” She never knew when to shut up.
“I've finished my book,” she announced.
“Good for you,” I said. “Shall we get together? It's been ages.”
Honor started talking about how long her book was, the problems she was having with the index and the amount of illustrations her publisher would allow. I carried on fiddling with the layout on my screen with the
receiver tucked into my shoulder. I remembered that it was months since I had seen her—she had been working on her book at one of the big universities up north.
And then I remembered that Honor was single. Incredibly, famously single. Good grief, why hadn't I thought of her sooner?
I got to know Honor at college. She was a brilliant, earnest, rather awe-inspiring person; your classic manless egghead. She had never been seen with a boyfriend in any shape or form (though she gave me to understand there had been a sort of romance in the sixth form of her school in Harrogate). Her chronically single state had nothing to do with her appearance. When you looked past her terrible haircut and unflattering specs, there was something almost beautiful about her large, open features and wide gray eyes.
Annabel used to say Honor's problem was that she was too clever, and didn't know how to hide it. We take it as one of the elementary rules of romance that men tend to steer clear of clever women. Honor's degree was one of the best in the whole university. She lectured on modern history at University College London, and her book was a weighty tome about nineteenth-century socialism. If men were not similar geniuses, Honor frightened them off. And if they were geniuses, they were either too competitive, or bonkers.
She further reduced her chances, I thought, by having terrible taste in men. Honor tended to get soppy about anemic Victorian pretty-boys. But couldn't Ben Darling do the soulful expression and cascading curls? And wouldn't Honor be the perfect woman for Ben? He liked women who were strong and protective and told him what to do. He had been gadding around with the old bag Lavinia Appleton (forty-seven, married, rich, with a passion for both music and management) for far too long.
“I feel as if I've been in prison,” Honor was saying dismally. “Shut in a library for months, miles from all my friends. I'd really love to see you, Cassie. Maybe we could meet for dinner?”
My great mind was working fast—think now and pay later, I told myself. “Actually, Matthew and I were planning to take Phoebe out to dinner this weekend. There's a terrific little French place in Flask Walk.”
“How is Phoebe?” Honor asked.
This was not the time to talk about Phoebe's illness. “Amazingly
well,” I said robustly. “And I know she'd like to see you again.” I began to improvise wildly. “She said so, just the other day. Why don't you come with us? Then you could meet Matthew.”
Honor had never laid eyes on my future husband, and I knew she was curious.
For the first time, her gloomy voice took on a lighter note. “That would be lovely. I need a bit of relaxation—and I only feel I can relax when I'm out with other women, or men who are safely spoken for. Well, you know me. I usually make a mess of any situation with romantic overtones.”
“Goodness, you won't have to worry about that!” I lied artfully. “It'll be just the four of us.”
I must admit, Honor can be rather downbeat. She sighed, in a way that usually heralded a long moan about the awfulness of the opposite sex. “I've given up romance,” she told me dolefully (I couldn't help thinking that Honor giving up romance was the same as me giving up hang-gliding). “I don't think the kind of relationship I want exists. The men I meet are so tedious and scruffy. Where has the poetry gone? Was there ever any?”
Thank God I didn't have time for all twenty-five verses of this familiar dirge. I rang off, promising to call her with the details later.
Then, still clutching the phone, I punched in Phoebe's number. “We have liftoff. Clear your diary for this Friday. Got a pen? Here are your instructions.”
I'd already worked it out. Matthew was to meet us at the restaurant. Honor and I would have a drink with Phoebe first. Phoebe must produce at least one clean son, ready to impress Honor with his sensitivity, intellect and general handsomeness. Could she manage that?
“Of course—don't make difficulties. Honor's a delightful girl.” Phoebe had been very tired recently, and I rejoiced to hear the energy in her gleeful voice. I knew she would save every scrap of strength for this dinner, and relish every moment of it. “I'll simply encourage the boys to be themselves. When she sees them in their natural habitat, she won't be able to resist.”
Afterward, when I had replaced the receiver, I caught Betsy staring at me gravely above her glasses “Honor Chappell? Is that the academic with the crew cut?”
“It's not a crew cut,” I said, already defensive.
“Hmmm. I hope you know what you're doing. My Jonah would run a mile.”
“I'm not trying to attract your Jonah. Fritz and Ben aren't threatened by women like Honor. And all they have to do is meet her—I want this first encounter to be as casual as possible.”

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