grimaced in a way that implied Kate really shouldn’t push her luck.
‘Maybe I ought to have a look myself,’ he replied.
‘Maybe you should,’ Kate snapped right back. ‘If you think you could find some other mug who’d put up with you.’
Currently they were slap bang in the middle of one of Joe’s moody tortured artist phases. It was always the same when he’d got a well-paid bread and butter job that he considered a piss-take of his musical talent. Maybe, Kate thought, staring him out, willing him to look away first, under the circumstances it ought to be bread and margarine. But whichever it was he’d given her the whole soulless artless world speech earlier in the day, the one about how great men have always been paid peanuts for artistry and magic and mega-bucks for popsy-pink cute commercial drek. How he was worth more than this creatively, far more. Not that he was planning to turn the margarine commercial down, obviously.
‘Can you pair finish your row later?’ snipped Chrissie, ‘I’m famished.’
‘Just a couple more questions,’ said Kate
‘Age?’
‘Over thirty-five and under fifty, own teeth, and nothing that unscrews at night. I’ve only ever sent off for books and CDs, till now,’ Chrissie paused for effect. ‘Do these guys come with a no-quibble guarantee?’
‘Only if you haven’t tampered with the packaging,’ said Kate.
Across the room, Joe snorted.
So they finished off the questions and Kate nipped out to check on the food, while Bill checked the form through.
Joe followed Kate into the kitchen. ‘This is totally and utterly crazy,’ he hissed, pulling another beer out of the fridge.
‘What is?’
‘What do you mean what is? She’s got crap taste in men. She’ll end up picking some nutter and we’ll be the ones sitting up till three in the morning listening to her going on and on about how bloody awful he is to her.’
‘You mean, I will,’ Kate said, pushing a thick tendril of dark red-brown hair back behind her ear. She kept it long even when it was fashionable to have a crop or a bob. Naturally wavy, her hair framed a gamine face and huge grey eyes. Handsome rather than pretty, Kate Harvey had a face that lingered in the mind like a tune. A sensual bluesy tune that is, not popsy-pink cute commercial drek.
‘Well, don’t say that I didn’t warn you. You know what she’s like.’
‘And exactly what am I like, Joe?’ Chrissie said, right on cue, as she stepped in to the kitchen behind him.
He spun round, reddening furiously. ‘I was just saying you need to be careful with this dating stuff, meet somewhere public. We’ve all read things in the papers.’ He was speaking fast, the words crisp, sharp and defensive. ‘Don’t give them your address or phone number. You don’t know who they are, they could tell you anything. Anything at all.’
Nice recovery, Kate thought, stirring the curry.
Chrissie lifted her eyebrows. ‘Oh right, and so real live men, talking face to face, always tell you truth, do they, Joe?’ She poured herself another long shot of Archers.
‘No. You’ve got to be careful, that’s all I’m saying.’
Chrissie rolled her eyes heavenwards as if to say she didn’t need nannying by anyone, least of all Joe. ‘How long till we eat?’
‘Few more minutes,’ replied Kate.
Back in the office, at the computer, Bill was still reading through Chrissie’s application form. ‘Do they have women on here as well?’ he asked, as Kate and Chrissie came back in.
‘Uhuh, in fact just about anything your pretty little heart desires.’ Kate slipped back into the seat as Bill vacated it and moved the cursor across to one of the menus.
‘Here you are, darling, no need to go without, what are you looking for? Male, female, bisexual, gay, lesbian, transsexual, transvestite. If you can’t find anything you fancy there, Bill, they’ve also got a category “Other, please specify”.’
‘Sweet Jesus.’
‘You want to knock yourself up a profile while we’re here?’ Kate asked with a grin
‘Not at this precise moment, no.’
‘So did we miss anything out?’ Kate enquired, glancing back at the screen.
‘Do you only want to see profiles of members with photos?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Chrissie, who was on a roll now. ‘I’d like to see who it is I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.’
Joe shot Kate another warning glance.
‘I’d take a chance if I were you,’ Bill was saying, ‘looks aren’t everything.’
‘Presumably that’s something you’ve learned from personal experience, is it, eh, Bill?’ said Chrissie.
‘Ouch,’ Kate said. ‘Saucer of milk, for this table please.’
The two of them enjoyed needling each other so much, although it always seemed to Kate that it wasn’t so much a fancying thing, more that they were both desperate to out-clever each other.
When he first moved in to their street she and Chrissie had suspected Bill was gay, for no other good reason than he was tall and dark-haired, softly spoken, nicely preserved and kept himself in good shape. He was a photographer, which kind of fitted the profile.
Then one summer, when the kids were smaller, they had invited loads of friends over for a barbecue and Bill had been included somewhere along the line. Half a dozen drunken musos jamming away at the bottom of the garden, picking out Neil Young tunes under a starry sky, lots of very right-on conversation and barefoot women cradling sleeping babies and wine glasses, rocking buggies, sitting around putting the world to rights; it had been a good evening.
When the party was whittling down to the well-known, well-loved hardcore, Bill had had a huge row with some little blonde bird, who stood in the middle of their patio, hands on hips, letting off a great tirade of abuse.
Seconds later they’d all watched Bill leg it out of Kate’s garden like a rat up a drainpipe, bolting back to his house, vaulting over the back fence, although unfortunately the little blonde had seen him go and hared down the alley to cut him off.
‘You bastard, Bill, you think you can just screw me and throw me out, do you? I’m not like your other women. You bastard! Talk to me. Talk to me. Bill? Bill? Let me in. Let me in. I love you, I love you,’ she had wailed, all bottle blonde hair, sun bed tan and white stilettos. So, definitely not gay then.
Everyone at the party was totally enthralled and shuffled out into the street with their drinks to watch the performance. By this time the little blonde was hammering on the front door and then began throwing handfuls of gravel up at the window. When that didn’t work and Bill didn’t come out, she’d thrown a milk bottle and then another one, followed by his precious red geraniums in their terracotta
