Wishful Thinking (14 page)

Georgie wondered what he had done with the body. It seemed a little extreme to murder someone because they might have anorexia, but clearly any excuse would do. Possibly he had a mission to rid the world of anorexics.

‘My mother doesn't approve of dieting. She says young women nowadays are much too skinny. She says anyone who had lived through rationing would really appreciate good food. They don't know when they're lucky, she says.'

Aha! thought Georgie. The mother already. Knew it. Mother Knows Best. Anyone Mother doesn't approve, we eradicate. Bet my credit-card bill she wouldn't care for me.

‘Do you like chocolate?'

Was this another test for suspected anorexia? ‘Sometimes,' Georgie admitted cautiously.

‘I could cover your naked body in molten chocolate, and then lick it all off,' he suggested, his tongue flickering in the toothy suddenness of his smile like that of a lizard. ‘Or is that too daring for you?'

Georgie felt her skin crawl. Not only was he a serial killer, but he suffered from outmoded erotic fantasies which he obviously imagined were kinky. ‘A bit much for a first date,' she said. ‘Anyway, I did that when I was a teenager. It's frightfully passé. Tell me, are you really a millionaire?'

‘You shouldn't be so mercenary. My mother doesn't like women who are mercenary. Your ad was all about money, when it should have been about finding a beautiful relationship.'

Georgie was temporarily staggered into speechlessness.
I don't want a beautiful relationship! I asked for a MILLIONAIRE! Of course I'm mercenary
.

‘As it happens, Mother has a large house in Surbiton,' the psychopath continued.

‘Do you share it with her?' Georgie asked.

‘Oh no. But we'll get it when she dies, naturally.'

Georgie ignored the ‘we'. His e-mails had clearly been misleading – or had she mixed them up? – but she had never given him her real name, so she would be relatively safe if she could only survive this date. She considered asking when his mother's death might occur, but curbed the impulse. In any case, the mothers of serial killers are notoriously long-lived (there may be some sort of compensation factor operating here).

‘You know, you must get off the subject of money. You're not really that kind of person: I can tell. All through our correspondence I've felt we had a natural affinity. Do you know, we've exchanged over twenty e-mails?'

‘I send twice that many every day,' Georgie said. ‘I'm a compulsive e-mailer.'

‘Yes, but that must be for work,' he responded, serene in his conviction of their affinity. ‘Those don't count. I remember you said you work at a publisher's?'

‘Yes,' Georgie conceded, increasingly wary. That might, she felt, have been a mistake. It was not the kind of information you should throw around.

Her worst fears were realised.

‘Actually, I'm writing a book myself . . .'

‘Why couldn't he have just tried to lure me away somewhere and strangle me?' Georgie lamented afterwards, on the phone to me. ‘I told him I worked in the Accounts Department, but it didn't do any good. He said I didn't look like an accountant. Then he kept hinting I must be great friends with all the important editors, you know, sort of roguishly, only he didn't look roguish, he looked ghoulish. Then he produced his chunk of manuscript and sat over me while I read it.'

‘I don't think you can
sit
over someone,' I remarked. ‘You have to stand.'

‘Stop being so bloody editorish.'

‘Sorry. Go on.'

‘I had to read a whole chapter of it, and there was this sex scene, involving – guess what? – molten chocolate, and he obviously thought it was terribly raunchy, poor sod, and then I started to feel sorry for him, he was so pathetic, even if he
was
a serial killer.'

‘You didn't say you'd see him again?'

‘Good God, no! I may be soft-hearted – on a bad day – but I'm not stupid. I got out as fast as I could.'

‘It sounds awful.' My sympathy was sincere. I too have often been waylaid by acquaintances flourishing their literary efforts. People seem to think it's perfectly okay to impose on someone in publishing encountered on the social circuit, though they wouldn't dream of it with anybody else. I mean, you would hardly go up to a brain surgeon at a party and demand a lobotomy, would you?

In the silence that ensued I could feel Georgie unwinding like a broken spring. ‘You know,' I resumed after a moment's reflection, ‘wouldn't the molten chocolate solidify before you could lick it all off?'

‘Coming to think of it,' she said, ‘in my day we used chocolate spread. It made a fearful mess of the sheets . . .'

Shattered by her experiences in the millionaire market, Georgie decided to take the rest of the week off (from millionaires, not work) and have fun with Cal. On Friday lunchtime we all went to a nearby pub for a snack and a drink (I passed on the snack, nobly. At least I'd lost the habit of snacking). ‘You really are looking gorgeous, Cookie,' Cal told me. Georgie had filled him in on the business of the wishes as regards Lin and I, but clearly not herself. ‘Go easy on the weight-loss, though. It'd be a shame to shrink those tits any more.'

‘You don't have to stare at them quite so much,' Georgie said somewhat coldly. ‘They aren't going to go away. Not this week, at least.'

Cal grinned. ‘If Georgie drops me,' he said, ‘I'd like to land in your cleavage.'

‘If I drop you—' Georgie's vocal temperature was plunging well below zero ‘–
when
I drop you – your life will be blighted, all other women will be as dust and ashes to you, you'll turn to drink—'

‘I already have.'

‘– and in the end you'll probably become a monk. Okay?'

Something in the way he smiled at her, a kind of warmth in his eyes, squeezed at my heart. I thought: He loves her. He truly loves her. What did she want with a millionaire and a debt-free credit card, when she had love? The price of a good man is above designer labels – as the Bible might have said had it been written rather more recently. On the other hand, Cal hardly qualified as a good man . . . did he? What is a ‘good man', anyway? Does the woman of today want someone to offer her economic support and protect her from every wind that blows, or does she want a partner, an equal, a soulmate – an object of lust – a subject of love? Perhaps it's simpler just to have a checklist requesting male 25–45, interested in arts/sport/music, n/s, gsoh, looking for ltr with lots of tlc. Love is the spark which you don't find by advertisement or net-surfing, and what is a spark, in the end? A warmth in the eyes . . . a squeeze at the heart.

The price of love is not payable by credit card.

On which note . . .

‘I've got a date,' Lin said abruptly, breaking into a conversation in which she had taken little part.

‘That's wonderful,' I said.

‘Who is he?' asked Georgie. ‘How did you meet him?'

‘I went on the Internet,' Lin said, with the air of one admitting to a secret vice. ‘Like you suggested. I joined one of those dating sites. I gave a false name. I know it's silly, but I didn't want to – I thought someone might remember me. From magazines and stuff. I started e-mailing four or five guys, and it was fun, it was
easy
, chatting away, telling them what I wanted to tell, leaving out the bad bits. And they like me, they really
like
me. One of them proposed already, which was awfully sweet and romantic, but a bit quick.'

‘Tell me about it,' said Georgie. ‘I had a guy who wanted to fly me to his villa in the South of France – and he hadn't even seen my picture.'

‘
What
?' Cal snapped.

‘Oh . . . I was just fooling around in a chatroom.' And, turning hastily to Lin: ‘What about this date of yours? Is he the one who proposed to you?'

‘No. We've just swapped e-mails. He's divorced – his wife went off with his best friend, but he isn't bitter. He says it was his fault for neglecting her. She wanted babies and all he did was work all the time. He's a systems analyst or something. He says he didn't realise what he'd lost until it was too late – it's really sad – and now he's prepared to work at a relationship, if he finds the right person. He wants kids, too.'

‘Ready-made?' Cal queried sceptically.

‘I told him about Meredith and the twins,' Lin said. ‘He thinks they sound great.'

‘The man's a fool,' I muttered,
sotto voce
.

‘What's his name?' Georgie asked. ‘Age? Vital statistics? Have you seen a photo?'

‘He's thirty-six, and he sent me a picture. He's got a thin face with nice smile lines and he looks kind. Not drop-dead gorgeous, but definitely okay. Anyhow, I have to start somewhere.'

‘That's the attitude,' said Georgie. ‘Don't go falling in love across a room until you've seen the guy close up. What did you say his name was?'

‘Derek,' said Lin, a shade defensively.

Georgie opened her mouth, presumably to say something unflattering, but was unexpectedly forestalled by Cal. ‘I had a mate at school called Derek,' he offered. ‘Great guy. Always backed me up in fights. I still see him from time to time.'

‘Maybe that's a good omen,' I said. ‘Where's he taking you?'

‘Some place called Mean Cuisine,' Lin said. ‘Brewer Street – or is it Beak Street? I'm meeting him there. I thought that was the right thing to do.'

‘Mmm.' Georgie frowned. ‘Never heard of it. Places with clever titles don't usually have brilliant food . . .'

It occurred to me that it might be the ideal restaurant to take Todd Jarman, for the name if nothing else. We had arranged another session at his house for the following week, but the obligatory editorial lunch would fall due sooner or later. And it had begun to seem very important that I strike the right note. An unpleasant one, of course.

‘I don't mind about the food,' Lin was saying. ‘Any food I'm not cooking tastes good. Particularly if I'm not doing the washing-up either. It's just . . . there's a problem.'

Why did I have a sudden feeling of impending doom?

‘Clothes?' said Georgie, who could only visualise one kind of pre-date trauma. ‘We'll sort you out. You could borrow my pink chiffon: it's a bit summery but you can put a coat over it and it's your kind of thing. Lots of floaty, drapey bits. It's short on me so it'll be fine on you.'

‘It's not clothes,' Lin said hurriedly. ‘The thing is, Vee Corrigan can't have the twins, let alone Meredith, and Sean's always too busy, and . . . and . . . you did say you might babysit, if I couldn't get anyone else . . .' She was looking at both of us, I noticed, though I had made no such offer. But friends stick together.

Doom.

Georgie blenched, then rallied. ‘Of course,' she said. ‘If you're really stuck . . . ?'

‘I'm really stuck. Yes.'

‘We'd love to.'

We
? Oh, well . . .

‘It's not like they're babies,' Lin said. ‘They amuse themselves most of the time.' (My blood did not run cold at this remark, but it should have done.) ‘I'll organise food for them, burgers or chicken takeaway which you can reheat. Don't let Meredith touch the mint-choc-chip ice cream, it – it doesn't agree with her. And don't let them watch anything unsuitable on TV. They watch it on their computers, mind you, but at least the definition isn't so good.'

‘Don't worry,' said Georgie. ‘I'm great with kids.'

‘How do you know?' I said. ‘You've never had any.'

Cal was looking decidedly amused.

‘Some of my friends have them,' Georgie replied. ‘They all adore me. Lin's lot will too.' Nothing like positive thinking.

‘Bound to,' Cal murmured.

‘Anyway,' Georgie continued, ‘if the worst comes to the worst, I'm bigger than they are. When it comes to children, I believe might is right.'

‘Actually,' Lin said tentatively, ‘the twins are eleven now. They're getting very tall . . .'

‘Doesn't matter,' Georgie attested. ‘I have natural authority.'

‘I hope so,' I said, ‘'cause I bloody haven't.'

‘Cookie the realist,' Cal commented. ‘Always the practical one.'

‘Am I?'

‘Yeah. Out of this trio, anyway. Lin's a real girly romantic, no matter how many men she meets whose minds are below-the-belt. Georgie still thinks the world is her oyster, though she's old enough to know better – she even fools it into oystering back, some of the time. You may be the youngest, but you're – oh, I don't know. Cynical. Pragmatic – is that the word I want?'

‘Yes,' I said, ‘but I'm
not
cynical. Cynics don't believe in anything. I do. I really do.'

‘She really does,' Georgie corroborated. ‘Anyhow,
I'm
the cynical one.'

‘No – you just try to be. Sorry, Cookie. I didn't want to upset you. I meant to pay you a compliment – on your maturity.'

‘A compliment,' said Georgie, ‘is when you go on about her tits – but that doesn't mean I want you to get back to that, okay?'

He left me feeling vaguely unsettled, though it was hard to analyse why. Was I a down-to-earth cynic? On the surface, maybe. But underneath I was bubbling with secret romanticism and a yen to prove that the world could be my oyster too – with a pearl in it. The trouble is, when you've always been fat and not very attractive romantic ideals and world-oysterishness don't have much chance to grow. Maybe my newfound sex appeal would colour my whole outlook, melting the hard outer crust of my personality and releasing a gush of dreamy-eyed optimism and total impracticality . . .