Sue Welfare - Fallen Women

‘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 pots, until the front steps and the light well outside the basement window were totally covered in shards of glass and bits of pot plant. Then she had thrown something else, something bigger, that had smashed the main pane in the bay window at street level. Finally, exhausted and wild with frustration, she had burst into tears, jumped into her car and driven away, tyres screaming, horn blaring. When Bill came out a few minutes later, looking sheepish and scarlet with embarrassment, everyone had cheered furiously.

Kate glanced up at them; she and Joe and Bill and Chrissie went back a long way. Although Bill’s taste in women didn’t appear to have improved significantly over the years.

‘Play nicely, you two. Just because Bill’s latest woman was gorgeous but – but …’ Kate winced; it was too late to pull out of the dive where she was headed. ‘Is there any way I can put this nicely?’

‘No need to pull your punches, she was decorative but deeply, deeply dumb,’ said Bill, taking another slurp of his beer. ‘Which was a real shame, because she was a lovely girl, but what I’m really looking for is a good woman. No, make that a great woman. Someone you don’t have to explain the punch line of every joke to. It was bloody terrifying being with someone so young, she treated me like this heroic super stud, someone who knew everything, in and out of bed, someone who had all the answers.’

‘Oh right, that’s it, rub it in, why don’t you,’ said Joe.

‘No, I’m serious. It was flattering being picked up by someone like her but not once I realised she was looking for a father figure. It was bloody awful, I totally felt responsible for her,’ and then he grinned, ‘although actually I thought that Chrissie was talking about me, not my choice in women. Anything else we have to do before we send off Madam’s application?’

Kate glanced back at the screen. ‘Not really, we just need a pseudonym now.’

‘Oh, this should be fun,’ said Joe in a voice that suggested it would be anything but.

‘How about Vulnerable Venus?’ suggested Bill after they’d tried out a few rude ones and a few clever ones and a few downright daft ones.

‘Oh please,’ said Chrissie, pulling a face.

‘It’s got a ring to it,’ said Joe.

‘And you can always change it later,’ said Bill. No one liked to say it but Chrissie’s laughter was getting more brittle with every passing second, it was time to wrap this up and eat, and so that’s what Kate typed in. ‘Vulnerable Venus.’

‘You don’t think this is a bit sad?’ Chrissie said, just as Kate was about to press ‘send’.

Bill shook his head. It was a very definite gesture. ‘It’s only another way to meet people. But like Joe said, just be careful. Then again falling in love is about chemistry and attraction and all that stuff you can’t possibly define on your shopping list.’

Kate looked at Bill and laughed, ‘Ohhhhh, my God, you are such a soft touchy feely bunny, Bill. It’s such a terrible shame you pair don’t fancy each other.’

And then Joe snorted, put his guitar down, and said. ‘And let’s face it, they can’t be any worse than the prats and no hopers that’s she’s picked up before.’ Before Chrissie could react, he continued, ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake, let’s go and eat. I’m starving,’ and so they did.

Later everyone was sitting around the kitchen table when they heard the phone ring. Nobody moved.

After three more rings it stopped and the hall door swung open.

‘Mum, it’s for you.’

‘Can you take a message?’ Kate said to Danny.

‘They said it’s really urgent.’

It was around nine o’clock, maybe half past. Half way through supper.

‘Nothing is that urgent. I’m not planning to deliver anything anywhere for anybody tonight,’ Kate said.

‘So, you want me to tell them that then, do you?’ snapped Danny. It was one of those family face-off moments. Danny looked a lot like Joe but with more hair. Same attitude.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, mother and son, and then Kate got to her feet. Clients really don’t like to be told the truth. ‘No’ does not appear anywhere in the Client-English dictionary. ‘Actually I’m working on it at the moment. I’m just waiting for agency to email more copy, more images, more bullshit,’ are just fine. Acceptable. ‘No’ is strictly a no-no.

‘Excuse me, folks, won’t be a minute. Bloody clients,’ Kate mumbled under her breath.

Except that it wasn’t a client. It was her little sister, Liz.

‘Kate? Is that you?’ The words were strung as tight as piano wire.

‘Yes, what on earth is the matter? Are you okay?’

‘It’s Mum. She’s had an accident.’

Kate felt an odd nip in her throat and then a great lurch of pain and panic in her solar plexus. ‘Oh God, what happened?’

‘She’s fallen over.’

Momentarily, the pain pulled back like a wave on a beach, replaced by relief, only to return an instant later, gentler but still raw. ‘Fallen over?’ Kate repeated.

‘She was coming home from the shops, I think, and fell down the steps at the back of the house. God alone knows how long she’d been lying there before they found her. It’s terrible. Anything could have happened. I mean, at her age. She’s getting frailer; when was the last time you saw her?’

There was a pause, well larded with guilt and any number of unspoken accusations. Kate leant back against the hallstand waiting for the next salvo.