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FANNY BLAKE What Women Want Dedication
To Robin, Matt, Nick and Spike
Contents Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 An Excerpt from Women of a Dangerous Age Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Acknowledgements About the Author Praise for What Women Want Copyright Chapter 1 ‘I’ll get out here, thanks.’ Bea cursed as she stepped out of the taxi into the sweltering chaos of Shaftesbury Avenue. July was always hell in central London. She could feel her trousers sticking to the back of her legs. She was already five minutes late and the traffic had slowed to a virtual standstill. If only her meeting had finished on time, she would have reached the restaurant first, just as she’d planned. She wanted to be sitting calmly, waiting, so that she could size up her lunch date as he crossed the restaurant to join her. But Jade, one of the editorial directors, had made such a fuss about which photograph was used on the jacket of an autobiography by another twenty-something D-list loser of whom Bea had never heard that the meeting had overrun by nearly half an hour. The summer heat was draped over the London streets like a thick blanket. The slight but insistent throb of a headache was an unpleasant reminder that she had drunk too much the night before. Had she? She tested herself by running through the exact route the taxi had taken home from the party. Mmm. Slightly hazy. As she picked her way through the pedestrians, walking as fast as she could without actually running, she could feel a familiar prickling warmth rising from somewhere in her chest and spreading up into her face, around the back of her neck and down into her arms. Not now, please. She had at least to arrive looking like a woman in control. Like a woman who was desirable. Not like a menopausal wreck. She slowed down, trying to restore her cool. He – she’d been told his name was Mark Carpenter – must have paid £125 for this date too. That was the deal when you signed up to Let’s Have Lunch, a discreet dating agency for the over-forties. Having been interviewed by a woman in her twenties who, given her immaculate streaked blonde hair, flawless skin and dazzling if vacuous smile, couldn’t have any idea what it was like for someone her mother’s age to be looking for love – or even just sex, Bea wasn’t choosy – you parted with £750 in return for a pitying glance of appraisal and the guarantee of being ‘matched’ with six possible partners. Six! Any of us should be so lucky, thought Bea. Yes, he’d wait. Dwelling on the fact that she was about to rendezvous with a man about whom she knew nothing apart from his name, she almost tripped over a knot of American tourists turning their A—Zs upside down as they tried to match the streets of Soho with the map. Cantina Italia was just up Frith Street, past all the cafés overflowing into the street with tables occupied by countless young men in white sleeveless T-shirts and girls wearing spaghetti-strap tops. If only she still had the body to carry off so few clothes with such aplomb. That was the trouble with being a few (OK, more than a few) pounds overweight. She still cared about what she looked like so wore clothes to cover up and ended up too hot, unwilling to rid herself of the layers that should be so easy to strip off and reveal all. Oh, where was the ‘longer, leaner, looser’ her that she’d been promised would begin to emerge after only ten Pilates sessions? So far all she’d managed to do was rick her back when attempting a new exercise on the reformer. She was aware that the cream linen suit, which had started the day so well, had lost its original snap. As the morning had gone on, her look had deteriorated from the fashionably creased to the unfashionably unironed. But short of taking a forty-five-minute detour up to Oxford Street to buy something new, there was nothing she could do about that now. Remembering all she’d been taught, she pulled in her stomach – skirt would hang better – and held herself upright. ‘Imagine a string pulling you up from the top of your head,’ echoed the voice of her Pilates teacher, as Bea pushed open the restaurant door, aware that the imaginary string must have melted in the heat. The restaurant wasn’t wide but it stretched back beyond a central table carrying a large arrangement of twirling bamboo, brilliant orange birds-of-paradise and scarlet ginger blossoms. She couldn’t see a man sitting alone. Maybe she’d got there first after all. Good. That meant she had time to go to the Ladies and check the make-up she’d jerkily repaired in the back of the cab on the way there (almost stabbing herself in the eye with her mascara) as well as compose herself. There was no point in being nervous, she reassured herself. It was only lunch, not . . . ‘Let’s have lunch?’ The voice came from behind her. Bea turned to see an effete young man in a loose white shirt of the finest linen, the sleeves rolled up, well-cut dark trousers and expensive shoes. Surely this wasn’t him – a more perfect ‘match’ than she could ever have hoped for. Or was a younger man picking her up before she and Mark Carpenter had even had a chance to sit down? ‘I’m sorry?’ Say it again, please. ‘Let’s have lunch?’ he repeated, with the slightest of smiles, encouraging her to agree. She hadn’t misheard. Unsure what to say, she tried a rusty attempt at a flirtatious smile. ‘Normally I’d love to, but unfortunately I’m meeting someone. Another time, perhaps.’ ‘No, no, no.’ His face spoke volumes. Of course he wouldn’t make such an obvious pass at her. She was old enough to be his mother, for God’s sake. ‘I meant the table booking,’ he explained, a little too patiently. ‘Is it under Let’s Have Lunch?’ She had forgotten
