The Men in her Life

knew that if he were here now she would forgive him as she had always forgiven him, knowing that no-one else would ever be able to make her touch the extremities of sensation as he did.
    Where was he, she wondered, gulping for breath. With Holly? She did not think so. The very things that attracted them to one another would even now have put them asunder. Holly was as competitive as he was and as quick and as manipulative. Neither of them would relinquish centre stage for very long. He had referred to her as a whore, which said more about him than about Holly, but it showed that she was only another woman he would use and discard, probably just because she was so very clever, and therefore threatened him.
    Joss must have come into the house after she and Tom had left for London , because he had placed the letter on the table. And he must have done that a few days before, because the post had built up behind the door since anyone had been into the house. She went upstairs again. The drawers in which he kept his clothes were empty and their one good suitcase had gone. In the tiny room he used as an office his most recent manuscript had disappeared. Ella’s laptop computer sat on the desk, with a pile of paper on top of it.
    Clare stared at the typewritten note on top of the pile.

    Dear Clare,
    I have decided to visit Italy , with a view to settling there. I am writing to Ella to tell her that she will always be welcome wherever I make my home, and Tom of course, when he is old enough. But the children have always been yours, and you will do as you think best. There are some poems on my desk, some of them about Tom, some not. Perhaps you could read them to him with my love. Joss.
    As a PS he had added his address, and an E-mail number.

    ‘You bastard,’ Clare said to the empty room.

    ‘Did you fancy Robert Carlyle?’ asked Colette, as she and Holly emerged into Leicester Square after seeing The Full Monty.
    ‘He’s sex on legs,’ said Holly, ‘very short legs, of course, but somehow he’s still sexy... he’s the first knowingly-short man I’ve ever gone for...’
    ‘What do you mean, knowingly-short?’
    ‘Most actors are short, but some are so short that all the special effects in the world can’t make them look tall... the computer programmer who comes up with digitally-enhanced on-screen height is going to be a rich man...’
    ‘Loads of short men are sexy,’ Colette argued, ‘d’you fancy a Mexican? I’m starving...’
    ‘As long as it’s not Taco Bell. What about that place off Long Acre?’
    They both turned and started walking towards the opposite side of the square.
    ‘Such as?’ Holly was back on small men.
    ‘Gary Oldman...’
    ‘Gary Oldman is sexy because he’s weird and unknowable and he sounds like all the boys we grew up with. Height doesn’t come into it...’
    ‘I’m not saying that he’s sexy because he’s short, just that being short doesn’t stop him being sexy...’
    ‘All right,’ Holly conceded, ‘why didn’t any of the boys we grew up with become film stars, do you think?’
    ‘You’ve forgotten the boys we grew up with,’ Colette said. ‘What about Dustin Hoffman?’
    ‘What about Dustin Hoffman? Dustin Hoffman is not sexy,’ Holly stated categorically.
    ‘He is!’
    ‘Just one film... after The Graduate they did their best to promote him as a pin-up, so why does he end up playing a crippled alcoholic tramp with TB, a middle-aged housewife and an idiot savant?’
    ‘Because he’s a great actor,’ Colette said.
    ‘Because he’s short, that’s why...’
    ‘You’re so bigoted,’ Colette told her, as they sat down at a table under a ceiling fan.
    Sometimes Holly wondered why she and Colette still called themselves friends. They bickered all the time and at some deep level didn’t really like each other very much any more, but they had known each other so long they were a bit like family which went even deeper. They knew so much about one another that they never had to explain or put on a show, which was vaguely relaxing, and, also like family, their pasts were so entwined they would never get rid of the other one, even if they wanted to.
    ‘I’m just tall. It’s all right for you, little Miss Average Height...’ Holly retaliated, ‘now shall we have a pitcher of beer or margarita?’
    ‘Margarita,’ Colette took a quick look at the menu and sat back in her chair, ‘so how did you get on?’ She knew Holly was employing her usual