The Men in her Life

quite famous,’ Colette said, taking the glass of wine that Holly offered her. She had a large white towel wrapped around her head and was wearing Holly’s cherry-blossom kimono. ‘There’s a feature on him in this month’s Arena.’
    ‘So?’ Holly watched as Colette touched up the varnish on her toenails.
    ‘Well, I mean, why can’t you just set your sights a bit lower?’ Colette suddenly threw her head forward and began to towel dry her hair vigorously.
    ‘Why should I?’ Holly responded automatically.
    The look on Colette’s upside-down face said, well, you’re not exactly successful this way, are you?
    ‘The trouble with you is that you want too much,’ Colette tried to be helpful. ‘You want An Officer and a Gentleman, but you want to have a conversation about nuclear disarmament with him afterwards. You see Truly, Madly, Deeply and you want Alan Rickman. The whole point is that he’s dead.’
    ‘You wanted Michael Maloney and he’s so boring.’
    ‘He’s not boring. He turned a Russian novel into a pigeon, don’t you remember?’
    ‘So you want the guy who turns a book into a bird and I want the dead one. What’s the difference? I’ll tell you the difference. Alan Rickman is sex on legs...’
    ‘But he’s got a moustache...’ Colette said, thinking that she’d at last caught Holly out.
    ‘But his voice is just so... brrr,’ Holly shivered with pleasure, ‘frankly, if he wouldn’t shave it off, I’d close my eyes and pretend. I’d make an exception for that voice.’
    ‘He’s still dead,’ Colette said, straightening up. Her dark brown wavy hair fell prettily round her face.
    ‘Why don’t you put in an ad?’ she asked, as if for the first time.
    ‘They’re just so desperate,’ Holly said. ‘Worst of all are the ones who say “OK, so I’ve placed an ad but I’m not a sad old git, it’s just that as a company director I don’t have the time...” I think I’d prefer one that started “Sad old git seeks...” ’
    ‘Not that you ever look at them, of course,’ Colette said.
    ‘OK, just supposing I did do a personal ad, or something, what would I say?’
    Colette made an O with her mouth and painted on mulberry lipstick using a lipbrush. She was the only person Holly knew who used a lipbrush.
    ‘You can go for the straightforward type, like, “Vivacious, slim redhead seeks tall man, GSOH”... keep it simple, you know...’ Colette blew herself a kiss in the mirror.
    ‘Yes, what is GSOH anyway?’
    ‘Good Sense Of Humour,’ Colette enunciated clearly, then blotted her mouth with a clean tissue she took from a packet in her handbag. Holly always forgot to blot.
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Anyone who puts GSOH doesn’t have one at all...’
    ‘Or you can go for the more roundabout ones, like, “Emma seeks Mr Knightley”... maybe that’d be more you...’ Colette said.
    ‘I’m nothing like Emma and I don’t want a Mr Knightley.’
    ‘I saw one the other day that might suit you. Very simple, it just went, “Harry. Why don’t we meet? Sally.” ’
    ‘But the whole point of When Harry Met Sally was that they had met and were best friends. Isn’t it asking a bit much to meet a best friend, who then turns into Mr Right, thereby telescoping at least ten years’ human communication into one line in a newspaper?’
    ‘It was only an example... you just think of your favourite heroine... anyway, I’ve got to run,’ Colette looked at her watch, ‘meeting yet another Heathcliff in All Bar One in ten minutes...’
    ‘How many Heathcliffs have there been so far?’
    ‘This is my third. Number one still lived with his mother, and the other had an artificial foot. I mean I know it shouldn’t matter, but...’
    ‘What did his ad read, Long John Silver seeks parrot?’
    ‘Or you could try an agency,’ Colette continued, ignoring her. ‘That’s what I’m going to do next, when I’ve saved up the joining fee.’
    ‘You’ve made it sound so attractive, I can hardly wait,’ Holly told her.

    ‘I’m trying to compile a list of things I want and things I don’t want in a man,’ Holly announced later to Simon, ‘but I only seem to be able to come up with things I don’t want...’
    They were sitting on the roof terrace of Holly’s club in Soho . Her encounter with Colette had made her feel depressed, and the only thing to do about it, she told Simon when he opened his door to her, was to drink a lot of champagne.
    ‘... I mean, you don’t like