Jenny Colgan - Where Have All the Boys Gone?

‘Louise, would you kindly shut it?’ said Katie.

Louise shrugged. ‘Sure, sure, just…’

‘I work shifts,’ said the policeman, bluntly appraising her. ‘Often up late, know what I mean?’

Katie quickly spotted the wedding ring and raised her eyebrows.

‘Do you…come and go in the night?’ said Louise lasciviously.

‘Actually, now I come to think about it, I hit my head on the pavement and now have concussion,’ said Katie crossly.

‘Depends if it’s an emergency,’ said the policeman over her head. ‘You know…if you really really need me.’

Katie stood up from the dingy grey plastic chair. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of getting a lift home in a police car while it’s going “nee naw nee naw” is there?’

‘Maybe,’ said the policeman, still looking at Louise. Louise coloured.

‘I’ll just take the form for my insurance, thanks.’ Katie snatched the banda sheet away from him.

‘There’s no need to be like that,’ he said. ‘You’ve just described something that happens a thousand times a day in the West End and you’ve given us nothing to go on. We’re really sorry.’

Katie harrumphed. ‘Well, it shouldn’t happen at all. Anything could have happened.’

‘Yes, trust me, you’re not the type. Can I offer you some victim support?’

‘I’m not the type???’

‘Shh,’ said Louise. ‘He probably just meant you don’t look like a soft target. That’s good, you know. You look like a proper Londoner, not a rube.’ Louise brushed down her micromini thoughtfully.

Katie grimaced. ‘I don’t think that at all. I think I’m…I think I’m getting tired of this stupid city, you know.’

‘Shh,’ said Louise again. ‘You don’t mean that. You love London.’

‘I thought I did,’ said Katie. There was a car alarm going off here too, but she didn’t think it was the same one. She wandered over to where Louise was making instant coffee from a tiny fun-sized jar. That was one of the disadvantages of her new flatmate; she wasn’t quite the coffee purist Katie had learned to be – another important London skill. She picked up the jar.

‘How on earth could this jar of coffee cost £2.39? It’s scaled for a family of mice.’

‘It was late,’ said Louise. ‘It was all I could get from the corner shop.’

Katie looked at the massive patch of damp over the kitchen wall. ‘You know, I can’t fix that patch of damp because every ten minutes someone new moves in next door and they won’t share the cost so nobody knows what to do.’

‘And you’re lazy and disorganised,’ said Louise. ‘What’s your point?’

‘I don’t know…I think maybe London is driving me nuts.’

‘Just because of one lousy mugger? And one crappy date? What about all the fantastic museums and parks we never go to?’

‘OK, but that was just tonight. But London…it’s so full of show-offs and loudmouths.’

‘But we like those kinds of people.’

‘I know – maybe that’s the problem,’ said Katie. She stared at the damp patch and tried again. ‘It’s just…everyone always wants to know what your job is. Why is that?’

‘Because when you meet a lot of new people, you have to ask them something?’ said Louise. ‘If you live in a small village you don’t need to say anything at all. Everybody already knows how overdue your library books are and how much money you make and whether or not your husband’s having an affair with the goat from the next village. And whether so and so’s daughter cheeked Mr Beadle at the bus stop. And who threw away the advertising leaflets in the big hedge.’

‘You really hated Hertfordshire, didn’t you Lou?’ said Katie sympathetically, patting her knee.

‘Well, London is what it is. I mean, so there’s the rain and the buses and the clubs you can’t get into and the Congestion Charge and the snotty shops and the way everything is always fifteen miles away and takes for ever and the way no one from the north, south-east or west ever sees anyone from anywhere except those places and despises the people that come from anywhere else. It’s obsessed with trainers, cocktails, guest lists and whatever the fucking Evening Standard tells them to be obsessed with.’

‘That’s not sounding so good,’ said Katie.

‘But it’s all we’ve got,’ finished Louise. ‘Don’t you see? We don’t have a huge amount of choice. It’s this, or having people discuss everything you buy in the Spar.’

‘The what?’

‘The Spar,’ Louise pouted. ‘If you have no shop, you’re a hamlet. If you have a Spar, you’re a village. If you have a Fairfields, you’re a town. Anyway, that’s not the point…’

‘And if you have a cathedral, you’re a city! So that’s how it works,’ said Katie. ‘I never knew that.’

‘Well,’ Louise pouted again.

‘There’s always the suburbs,’ offered Katie.

‘Do I look like I enjoy having my hair done and committing adultery?’ sniffed Louise.

‘Yes,’ said Katie.

‘That’s not the point. The point is, that the city is cool.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s urban, and hip, and…there’s hip things going on, and…’

Katie sipped her coffee carefully. ‘When’s the last time you bought Time Out?’

‘What? Why?’

‘Just asking.’

‘When’s the last time I bought Time Out?’ Louise looked as if she were trying to remember.

‘You’re scared of Time Out,’ said Katie.

‘I am not.’

‘You are. You’re scared of it. I remember. You moved here, read it for six months, never ever did any of the cool things it suggested that you do. Now you’re scared of it because it reminds you that there’s lots of things happening and all we ever do is go to work, go to the wine bar, and look for men.’

‘So, what do you want? A pair of flashy wellies? Some chickens?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Katie. ‘But I do know I want a change.’

A week later, they were at a new, trendier, cocktail bar. Olivia and Louise were staring grumpily into their espresso martinis. Katie’s head was hidden behind a paper.

‘Press officer required for a children’s hospital,’ she read. ‘See! I could do some good in the world.’

‘Are you thinking about hot doctors?’ asked Louise.

‘With cool caring hands and a lovely bedside manner? No,’ said Katie quickly.

‘Make sure you ask them about the cool caring hands bit at the interview – there’s a lot of girl doctors these days.’

Katie turned the page and sighed.

‘Put the paper down,’ said Olivia. ‘You’re not leaving, and that’s the end of it. I need you. We’ve got the carbohydrate-free chip coming up. It tastes like shit, but the magic is, it looks like a chip.’

‘Plus, we’ve got lots to do. You know, there’s that new dating thing on at Vinopolis,’ Louise said. ‘We could go to that. You eat your dinner in the dark, and get to know people without seeing them.’

‘You can tell if people are fat just from the way they sound,’ said Olivia.

‘No you can’t!’

‘Yes you can! And if they’re drippy and wet.’

‘You are an evil, prejudiced woman.’

‘Hey, look at this,’ said Katie.

She showed them the advert.

Can you see the wood for the trees? Fairlish Forestry Commission is looking for a press officer with at least three years’ experience in a related field. Knowledge of local wildlife/degree in zoology preferred. Contact: 1 Buhvain Grove, Fairlish IV74 9PB. Salary £24k

They gathered around to take a look at it. There was a long silence.

‘Katie,’ said Olivia gently. ‘Put the paper down. You know your degree is in history of art and theatre studies.’