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Authors: Kate Saunders

BOOK: Bachelor Boys
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I told him I wasn't listening. “It's total heaven. Men know nothing about women's fashions.”
“Maybe not,” Ben said, “but we know what makes a woman look foxy. And that suit makes me think of Mrs. Hutchings.”
“It does not!” Mrs. Hutchings was our old piano teacher, and anyone who has ever had piano lessons will know how deep this cut (it is a curious fact that an attractive piano teacher is as rare a sight as an ugly fireman).
“This is more you,” Fritz said. He leaned across me to pluck a silk shirt off the rail behind me. “Yes, you should definitely get this—don't you think, Ben?”
“Yes,” Ben said. It was his decided tone that made me look at the shirt (I will never wear anything that can be described as a “blouse”) properly. It was made of silk, in a penetrating shade of aquamarine, intriguingly flecked with orange—mouthwatering, but I'd never have considered it for myself in a hundred years. I did try it on, however, and was startled to see that Fritz knew what suited me better than I did myself. In some way that I couldn't define, the cut and color of the shirt made it a statement of freedom, style, youth—basically, it looked tremendous. In the mirror of that changing room, I saw a version of myself that I had been working at repressing since I met Matthew. Why had I done this? No wonder Matthew was being distant. It wasn't just that I looked younger and prettier in this Paul Smith shirt. For once, despite my shrimpy dimensions and tidy-proof clump of hair, I looked sexy. Matthew would go wild, I
thought. Matthew wasn't very gifted at foreplay, and I loved the rare occasions when he got too excited to bother with all that painstaking twiddling. Once (tipsy after a particularly good Mahler's Fifth at the Festival Hall) he didn't even wait until we got through my front door, but had his way with me on the stairs. It hadn't happened for ages. My stomach fluttered with anticipation (I don't know how else to describe that frisson of sex that feels like fearless fear). I was seeing Matthew that very evening, for a quiet dinner at the Camden Brasserie. I bought the shirt.
I came down to earth a little when I saw the size of the bill. We all winced as my credit card went over the polished counter. Fritz aggravated my guilt by refusing to tell me anything about the suits they had bought. These had now been spirited away for alteration, but he wouldn't even point out the similar ones on the rails, or describe the cut and color. He said I would simply have to wait until they arrived on my doorstep for the dinner party, now just one week away. I decided not to interrogate him. The suits were all terrific, anyway. They couldn't possibly come out of Paul Smith looking bad, and Phoebe would be in ecstasy—she wouldn't give a damn about the expense.
In high spirits (because there are few things as exhilarating as spending money you haven't got) we reeled out into Floral Street with our boxes and bags, and launched ourselves at the nearest bar. The sunny afternoon was fading into warm evening. We sat out on the Piazza, idly watching the clusters of people around the shops and cafés.
Fritz ordered designer beers all round, and we drank to the success of my dinner.
I said I shouldn't be drinking.
“Because you're meeting Matthew,” Fritz said.
“Yes. He doesn't like it when I roll in reeking of booze.”
Fritz was eyeing me thoughtfully. I was wearing the new shirt with my jeans. He gave me a slow smile.
“Matthew's going to love you in that,” he said.
 
Matthew didn't say anything about the shirt until I mentioned it. Then he said, “Actually, I'm not too mad about it. It's a bit—well—hippyish.”
I spent the rest of the meal trying not to be depressed. Across the room, I had to look at my hippyish reflection in the big mirror. Not that
Matthew was in a bad mood, however. Yes, he was distant and abstracted—melancholy in a rather grand way, extremely kind when he noticed me properly. I remember that I was angry with him, but that I nevertheless worked incredibly hard to liven him up (I wonder if men realize how much women jolly them along—I sometimes think they'd all be in locked wards if not for us).
We chatted about the lighter sides of our respective jobs (I'll spare you), and shared a taxi back to my flat. Matthew carried in his briefcase (he'd come from work) and the Mulberry overnight bag containing the chinos, polo shirts and deck shoes he wore out of office hours. Yes, he was staying the night. The flat was particularly non-slipshod. I had dusted, vacuumed, changed the sheets and scrubbed the bath early that morning. We drank peppermint tea and went to bed.
Sex occurred.
I fell asleep, clinging to Matthew's warm bare back, telling myself that the bad dream would soon pass.
Early on Sunday morning, we were woken up by a terrific rumbling crash—almost like an explosion. It came from the sitting room, and was followed by an eerie silence. Matthew—stark naked—ran in first.
“Shit!”
I was right behind him, owlish and giddy with sleep. “Oh shit,” I echoed.
My sitting room ceiling had fallen down. The room was filled with a brown haze of ancient plaster dust. Every surface was thickly covered with huge jagged lumps of plaster, and inches of this sticky, clinging dust. It grabbed at our throats and plugged our nostrils. Coughing angrily, Matthew wrenched up the window so fast he snapped the sash cord.
As the first shock subsided, I became aware that Matthew was muttering to himself, “Shit, shit, fuck, oh fuck, shit, fucking hell,” and this from a man who never swore.
I stared dazedly up at the place where the bulging old ceiling had been. It was a mess of filthy wooden lathes. This was going to cost me a fortune.
Matthew had left his briefcase on the sofa. Frantically, he tried to beat off the thick carapace of dark red plaster dust. He struggled to open the dust-choked lock. The case came open, and he gave a great groan (a little
like the groan when he came, only more passionate). All the vital papers inside the briefcase were entombed in dust. He began to pick them out one by one, moaning piteously.
I stuck a dusty Yellow Pages into the window to keep it open. “Darling, I'm sorry,” I found myself rasping—though it did occur to me to wonder why I felt the need to apologize. Oh God, this was a nightmare. This was slipshoddery run mad.
“For God's sake!” Matthew had found his Mulberry overnight bag, similarly interred. He tried the zip. It was stuck. We were both wheezing by now, and weeping as dust seeped into our eyelids. We were naked, like two ancient Britons freshly daubed with woad.
“This is the last fucking straw!” Matthew shouted.
He had never shouted at me. I stared at him, horrified, waiting for him to return to his proper self.
“You live in shit, Cassie—did you know that? Not this flat, but your entire bloody life—I might have known my stuff wouldn't be safe here! You don't care, do you? Because you surround yourself with people who don't give a shit! You can't get away from it—it's in your background, the types you know, types who think it's FUNNY to give a shit. Well, I've done enough—I'm not taking this.”
He went into the bedroom. I stumbled after him. The dust had spread like a disease. A film of dirt lay across the duvet cover. My dressing table was like Miss Havisham's. A filthy fog hung over everything. Matthew, shaking with anger, dived for his office clothes from the day before. He pulled on the trousers and shirt, snatched the jacket and tie, grabbed his bags and walked out without another word. I stood, shocked and shivering, watching the storm of dust he had raised when he slammed my front door.
I was crying—a sort of dusty snivel.
Shouldn't Matthew (my lover, lest we forget) have tried to help me, or at least offered a word of sympathy? Wasn't my dust-covered computer a more serious casualty than his suit or his briefcase? Shouldn't he have asked me home with him, instead of leaving me in a flat that was plainly uninhabitable?
I put on my white dressing gown, now khaki with dust. Lumps of plaster dug into my bare feet. My bathroom and kitchen were coated
with dust. So were the tins in the cupboard, the vacuum cleaner, everything. I would never clean this up. And my boyfriend had blamed me and left me. Dust thou art, to dust thou wilt return. I made myself a dust-tasting cup of tea, and called Phoebe.
I ought to have worried about waking her, but this disaster had wiped out any awareness of her mortality. She had become eternal again—the one vital, unfailing source of comfort.
Her calm voice crooned through my sobs. “Darling, it's going to be all right—no, of course it's not a disaster—oh, my darling, this is no time to worry about a silly dinner party! I'm just thankful you weren't underneath—you could have been hurt! And how beastly of Matthew. No, of course you can't stay in that mess—you must come straight round here. Yes, that's an order. I'll send Fritz to fetch you.”
It was a huge relief to let myself be soothed and taken care of. I was thirty-one years old, but Phoebe's comforting was as steady and all-knowing as it had been when I was six, and I had sobbed in her arms because Felicity Peason hadn't invited me to her birthday party.
Phoebe could still make everything all right. Meekly following her instructions, I put down the phone, washed off the worst streaks of dust in the shower, and dug out a pair of old jeans that had escaped the worst.
The doorbell rang before I could find any passable socks. I ran barefoot down to the street door, and found both Fritz and Ben. Fritz was carrying several rolls of black plastic bags and a large bucket filled with packets of sugar soap. Ben's arms were full of J-cloths and drums of Ajax. Both brothers had mops slung over their shoulders like rifles. Ben wore a bucket on his head. For the first time since the start of this nightmare, I broke out into a smile.
“We're the cavalry,” Ben said. “Lead us to the injuns.”
I began, “Guys, you didn't have to—”
“Yes we did,” Fritz said. “We're under orders. If you try to stop us, I'm afraid we'll have to tie you to a chair.”
I blew my nose resoundingly, leading the way up the stairs through the dusty haze (it was everywhere—I'd have to write a cringing note to the woman who lived underneath me). “Be prepared. It's awful. You can't possibly clean it up, because nobody can.”
I wish Matthew had been there, to see the reactions of Fritz and Ben
when they saw the mess. After a minute of startled silence, they started laughing.
That was all it took to put the world right. Before I knew it, I was laughing too. Matthew's rage suddenly seemed absurd. I realized that he had not been angry about his damaged possessions, but about his damaged dignity. A memory flashed back at me, of his willy bobbing about while he wrestled with his briefcase—well, dignity and nudity aren't often seen together. And it is dreadfully undignified to be an angry nude person. Poor Matthew, this would probably haunt his dreams for years.
“I think the Moose was a bit of a shit, running out on you like that,” Ben said warmly. “Next time I see him, I've a good mind to get Fritz to hit him.”
“Seriously,” I said, “you can't do anything about this. It'll take hours.”
“Heavens, this is nothing,” Fritz said. “I can't think why you're making such a fuss. So go away and leave us to it.”
“Oh no, don't be silly.” I was feeling a little ashamed of my hysteria, which had mostly been a reaction to Matthew's outburst. “I'll start putting the biggest lumps in black bags, and sweeping up the worst—”
“Grimble, shut up.” Fritz put his hands on my shoulders and gently pulled me round to face him. “Get out of this flat and drive straight round to Mum's. She's waiting for you.”
For a second I could have cried again. After Matthew's unkindness this was bliss. Why didn't I just let them look after me? I pulled myself together, found socks and car keys, and fled gratefully into the fresh air.
Phoebe had made a pot of coffee. A jug of hot milk steamed beside it. There were warm brioches wrapped in a napkin. My domestic catastrophe had poured energy into her, summoning her old self from the shadows.
I can't describe the deliciousness of that coffee. I drank two large cups and gave Phoebe the whole story. This was the first time I had admitted to her that Matthew wasn't perfect. She showed no surprise, only concern—which took the form of endless pots of homemade jam lining up beside my plate.
“He was cross, that's all,” she said thoughtfully. “Men do get cross about things like this—remember Jimmy, when the pipes burst?”
I tore a hollow in a brioche and filled it with apricot jam. “He said I
lived in shit. And I honestly don't, Phoebe. He knows how hard I work at having a nice, normal, hygienic house. I've always been determined not to be some seedy old Boho like Ruth.”
“Darling, your flat isn't at all seedy. It's charming.”
“He looked at me as if he really disliked me. It felt horrible.”
Phoebe said, “Perhaps you'd better not marry him.”

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