The Men in her Life

clasped tightly to her cheek. The look in her eyes was not arrogance but sheer terror. Mo recognized suffering and understood. For a moment she allowed her eyes to meet Philippa’s and acknowledge her pain, then she looked away quickly.
    ‘Cerruti has some lovely dark navy separates,’ she said, breaking the charged silence.
    ‘Right,’ Philippa said, anxious to re-establish the hierarchy with the assistant after the strange moment, ‘perhaps you could choose some for me?’
    It was like in the movies, Mo thought, flipping through a rack of jackets. Two women from opposite ends of the social spectrum meet. They have nothing in common except the man they both love. In the movie they would become friends, even plot against the man, he would get his comeuppance and everyone would live happily ever after. A romantic comedy. In real life, Mo would continue to watch Philippa from a distance once or twice a year when she came to buy her spring and autumn wardrobe, and she would size her up, as she had done ever since the first time she spotted her in the department, measuring her decline against her own: number of grey hairs, firmness of bottom, drop of breasts, except that now there would be no small victories like the time she had spotted a varicose vein behind Philippa’s left knee, because she could no longer think of her as a competitor. All they now shared was loss.

Chapter 15

    Was there any point in continuing to take the Pill? Holly was staring at the posters Sellotaped to the wall beside the receptionist’s hatch. If she really believed that condoms worked, she reasoned, looking at the helpline number for HIV/AIDS, then she should not need to be on the Pill anyway. If she trusted a condom to stop her getting a terminal disease, she ought to trust it to stop her getting pregnant. The way things were going it would have to be an immaculate conception anyway, and she didn’t know whether the Pill was effective against that. The doctor was running half an hour late, and Holly was sure that she was contracting TB from the disgusting old man who leered a yellow smile at her in between death-throe bouts of coughing. The moment she made up her mind to walk out of the crowded waiting-room, the receptionist called her name far too loudly for the distance that separated them and Holly jumped.
    It wasn’t the health risk involved in taking the Pill as much as the summation of her life in the doctor’s notes.
    Age: 35.
    Weight gain? NO (at least that wasn’t a problem)
    Are you in a stable relationship? NOT REALLY (sounded so final to say just NO)
    Do you smoke? YES (but I’m cutting down)
    How many? ABOUT 10
    Holly bought ten cigarettes each morning, and ten each evening for the next day. She didn’t know any smoker who actually smoked ten a day. She was surprised that the computer wasn’t programmed automatically to compensate for the underestimation and come up with twenty when the doctor tapped in ten.
    My life, Holly thought, taking the prescription for another six months’ supply. If she decided to put in a personal ad, as Colette was so keen for her to do, it would read:
    ‘Thirty-quite-a-lot female smoker, slim, seeks man to make taking Pill worthwhile.’
    It seemed such bad value to take potentially dangerous hormones each night without actually getting the pleasure they were designed to give you, like paying a year’s subscription for an expensive gym and never getting round to going, or not using up the monthly free bit on your mobile-phone bill.
    Holly picked up six slim boxes from the pharmacy counter at Boots, one slightly bulkier packet from the newsagent, and a giant cappuccino on her way into the office.
    Putting the shake-sized coffee down on her desk, she decided to ring Colette before she opened her post.
    ‘It’s me. Fancy a drink tonight?’
    ‘A quickie. I’m going out at eight. I could always shower at your place.’
    ‘Not another date?’
    ‘Yeah, you ought to try it.’ Colette was in Soul Mates, Eye Love, and regularly left messages on the answerphones of strangers. She had taken to contemporary methods of dating with the zeal of an Open University student studying for a business degree, and her conversation these days was all about hit rates and personal interfacing.
    ‘So far you’ve had three who wouldn’t even reach up to my tits and a trainspotter...’ Holly reminded her.
    ‘He was not a trainspotter, he was interested in transport policy.’
    ‘Oh, right, excuse