Chapter 3 #2
‘Mmm.’ Freddie was momentarily distracted by the thought of Keanu Reeves. ‘Will is the love of your life,’ he continued, returning to the subject at hand. ‘He’s Neo, he’s Mr Big, he’s Heathcliff. Life’s too short to settle for less. You’ve got to go after what you want.’
‘I am. I’m going after Brian.’
Freddie sighed in exasperation.
‘Maybe I can resolve this,’ Ken suggested. ‘I have a system for working out who’s the better prospect when you have to choose between two people.’
‘Sounds great!’ Freddie said. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘But I’m not choosing between them,’ Kate said. ‘Will isn’t a possibility.’
‘Well, nine times out of ten the one you’re choosing anyway comes out on top, so it reassures you that you’re making the right decision.’
Kate was dubious.
‘Come on,’ Ken coaxed her. ‘At least you can prove to Freddie that you’re not settling.’
* * *
Of course, Kate thought dejectedly twenty minutes later, this would turn out to be the tenth time out of ten.
Ken had claimed it was a simple mathematical calculation.
His ‘system’ consisted of dividing a sheet of paper in half, allocating one side to Will and the other to Brian.
He then made each a ‘pro’ and a ‘con’ column, arbitrarily awarding points from one to ten for positive attributes and deducting them for negative ones.
‘Add up the scores at the end and you have your answer,’ he had concluded.
‘For example, a cool job gets ten points. Will has about the coolest job in the world, short of actually being in a band. Plus, he’s loaded, so that’s another ten points. Now, what does your boyfriend do?’
‘He’s a psychotherapist.’
‘Not as cool as manager of a band, but pretty lucrative,’ Ken decided.
‘Not the way he does it,’ Freddie cut in, as Ken’s pen was poised over Brian’s ‘pro’ column.
‘How does he do it?’
‘With Tibetan singing bowls and dancing.’
‘Ah!’ Ken promptly crossed out ‘psychotherapist’ in the ‘pro’ column and wrote ‘space cadet’ on the ‘con’ side. ‘Band manager, dix points,’ he said, in a fake Eurovision accent, ‘professional hippie, nul points.’
‘This is fun, isn’t it?’ Freddie grinned, wrinkling his nose at Kate. He was evidently enjoying himself.
‘Brilliant!’ Kate said drily.
And so it had gone on, with Will outscoring Brian consistently. Ken and Freddie had become so engrossed in their little game that Kate wondered if they’d forgotten she was there.
‘I’ve got another! I’ve got another!’ Freddie shrieked, bouncing around in his seat like a schoolboy begging the teacher to let him answer a question.
‘For Brian or Will?’
‘Will. He’s got a cleft in his chin. A really deep one,’ he added, as this announcement was greeted with bemused silence from Ken. Then Ken remembered the cleft in his own chin and smilingly awarded Will five points.
‘I take it the boyfriend is bereft of cleft?’ he asked, describing another big fat zero on Brian’s side, as Freddie nodded happily. ‘Don’t worry, Kate,’ he said sympathetically. ‘It’s anyone’s game yet. Your chap can still catch up.’
Studying the sheet of paper, Kate doubted it.
Brian had been awarded eight points for his good looks, but that was still less than Will’s ten.
The only point on which he had outscored Will was his straight hair (ten points) versus Will’s curly (minus five).
In an effort to bump up Brian’s score, Kate had made no defense of Will’s hair.
‘And Kate’s family all hate Brian, but they love Will,’ Freddie piped up again.
Ken considered. ‘That can go either way,’ he said. ‘Are you close to your family, Kate?’
‘Well, fairly…’ Kate saw an opening for Brian.
‘Are you kidding?’ Freddie looked at her scathingly. ‘They live up each other’s arses!’ he told Ken.
‘That’s a biggie, then,’ Ken decided, giving Will ten and Brian minus ten, cancelling out his straight hair at a stroke.
‘Isn’t there anything against Will?’ he asked, trying to be fair.
‘Well…’ Freddie hesitated, ‘there is one thing…’
‘Yes?’
Freddie was silent for a moment, seemingly reluctant to say whatever it was. ‘He’s an alcoholic,’ he said finally.
‘He is not!’ Kate gasped.
‘Okay, retired,’ Freddie allowed.
‘Still,’ Ken sucked his breath through his teeth, ‘he’ll have to have minus twenty for that. What if he decides to come out of retirement? Most alcos make at least one big comeback before they retire for good.’
‘Twenty points is a bit harsh.’
‘Any kind of substance abuse, addiction or violence is minus twenty,’ Ken said firmly. ‘It’s not negotiable.’
Freddie was thrilled. ‘He’s very strict, isn’t he?’ he remarked to Kate.
‘But Will isn’t an alcoholic,’ Kate demurred, ‘and he never has been.’ She couldn’t let this go by, even in the interest of bumping up Brian’s score. ‘What on earth gave you the idea that he was?’
‘Well, he was out of his tree when he shagged you that time. And it was all fizzy water and coke at the wedding yesterday. Quite sweet, really.’ Freddie smiled fondly.
‘So?’
Freddie shrugged. ‘Doesn’t drink, used to be a pisshead – you do the math, as the Americans say.’
‘Freddie, your “math” is completely skewed. You’re adding two and two and making twenty-two.’
‘You mean he really isn’t an alco?’
‘No.’
‘So why the about-face on the drinking front?’
Ken and Freddie looked at her intently, waiting expectantly for her answer like members of an interview panel.
‘He can’t tolerate alcohol. He’d get plastered after half an alcopop, and he was always having blackouts. Lorcan says he stopped because it was freaking him out, not knowing what he’d done or where he’d been – or who with,’ Kate added.
‘Wow! So he’s never been an alcoholic?’
‘Nope.’
‘And he gave up drink because he’s basically allergic to it?’
‘Yep.’
‘You know what this means?’
‘What?’
‘He’s perfect.’
Ken was adding up the final scores. ‘Freddie’s right, Kate,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s no contest. You simply can’t choose an impoverished vegetarian cyclist over a billionaire carnivorous motorist. It just doesn’t compute.’
* * *
Freddie had been right about one thing, Kate thought later, as she got ready for her date with Brian.
Life was too short, and you had to go after what you wanted – which was why she had decided to lay her cards on the table tonight and give Brian an ultimatum.
There were certain things she wanted in life – marriage, children – and she knew she wasn’t going to get them drifting along with him.
She was almost thirty and felt ready to settle down.
She was also pretty sure that settling down was not on Brian’s agenda.
He was too much of a free spirit – a fancy way of saying he was a commitment-phobe, according to Freddie.
But it was better she should find out now so she that could move on and find someone else.
She was going all out to vamp Brian tonight.
She had decided to wear her new favourite new dress, a flirty poppy print with a fitted bodice and full, almost fifties-style skirt that flattered her figure to perfection.
She had acquired it from one of the passengers on the African trip, who had lent it to her when she had nothing pretty to wear to the farewell dinner and later insisted she keep it.
She would never have picked it out for herself – it was ridiculously girly, and she suspected it was also very expensive and way out of her price range – but she loved it, and it really suited her.
This was confirmed by Freddie, who came in a few moments later for the ‘dress rehearsal’, a pre-date ritual. ‘Killer dress!’ he said, his eyes popping gratifyingly. ‘You look stunning!’
‘Thanks,’ Kate smiled. ‘Okay, which shoes? There’s these…’ She held up a pair of flat cream pumps, which Freddie dismissed.
‘What about these?’ She held up a pair of flat red ballet shoes.
Freddie sighed in despair. He was always trying to cure Kate of her flat-shoe fetish.
Kate’s shoulders sagged despondently. ‘What then?’
‘What look are we going for?’
‘Marry-me-or-else,’ Kate replied unhesitatingly.
‘Okay, stand back.’ Freddie knelt down to rummage in her wardrobe. ‘I seem to remember… yes!’ He emerged with a pair of red kitten heel mules with bows.
‘Aren’t they a bit over the top?’
‘With that dress?’ Freddie squealed. ‘Besides, they just scream, “Snap me up quick before someone else does.”’
Kate slipped her feet into them and inspected herself in the mirror. Freddie was spot-on: they matched the poppies on the dress perfectly, and the increased height they gave her showed off her slim, tanned legs.
‘Perfect!’ he said contentedly, admiring her reflection in the mirror. ‘You’ll knock him dead.’
‘That’s the general idea.’
‘And they won’t know what hit them at Lentils R Us.’
* * *
As Kate applied her makeup so that it looked like she wasn’t wearing any (Brian liked the natural look), she suddenly felt defeated.
She flung her blusher brush onto the dressing table.
Why was it always like this with Brian? Why did she always feel as if she was on a winning-back mission, pulling out all the stops to attract him anew?
The trouble was, she knew there were always plenty of women hovering around Brian, vying for his attention, while he was the only proper boyfriend she’d ever had.
Confidence had never been Kate’s strong point, and when she had met Brian she had been at a particularly low ebb, dented by a series of encounters with increasingly hopeless men, who always seemed primed to run if someone better came along – and someone always did.
She was beginning to rival even Freddie in her ability to attract the most awful men.