THE HUSBAND HUNTERS (23 page)

‘Of course, I will have to be careful for a bit now,’ she said, calming down a notch. ‘I could always lose it, in the first few months.’

‘I’m sure everything will be fine,’ I reassured her. ‘I’ll come to your scan with you and hold your hand.’

‘Thanks, Bee,’ she said gratefully.

Tash and I sat discussing it that night, down at the stables.

‘I am thrilled for her,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I don’t want anything to change. Rach has been my friend for like a million years, and it will be strange having to share her with a baby.’

‘Life has to change, Bee,’ Tash pointed out, ‘and this is how Rach wants to live her life. We have to support her in any decision she makes.’

‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘And I am happy for her, and I will love her baby when it’s born.’

I could see that Tash had something else on her mind. She was fidgeting with my stable lock, banging it back and forth.

‘What’s up?’ I asked her. She took a deep breath.

‘I don’t want to tell you this, Bee,’ she said, ‘but I saw Soph today.’

‘Oh right,’ I said, putting down my fork and stopping mucking out. ‘Did she say hello?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Tash. ‘She didn’t see me. I was in the village and I saw her walking towards the park – with Paul.’

I took a sharp intake of breath. Then I forced myself to let it out again. I knew Soph and Paul were seeing each other. What did I expect them to be doing – spending every moment they possibly could, apart? Of course, they were going to be doing couple things together, like walking in the park – but it still hurt.

‘I’m fine with that,’ I said, a bit shakily to Tash.

‘I know you are,’ she said, coming in the stable and hugging me, ‘but it’s still a bit much to swallow – and I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else.

‘
Did they look happy together?’ I asked, in a small voice.

‘Yes, they did,’ said Tash, truthfully, ‘but you will find someone else. Paul obviously wasn’t the right man for you – even though we all thought he was.’

I smiled at her. ‘When you get to our age, though, there doesn’t seem to be an abundance of fish left in the sea,’ I reminded her – and it was true. We were five fairly attractive girls – okay, Tash was more attractive than the rest of us – yet we were hardly fighting them off in droves.

In my early twenties, there always seemed to be hoards of available men to choose from. Now the pond was definitely getting smaller. All the good ones seemed to have been snapped up over the last five years, and were already getting married and having babies. It was like previously having had the whole of the Atlantic Ocean to choose from, and now being left with a goldfish bowl-sized puddle, with a few random rejects swimming around. If you did manage to get a date, you wondered what on earth was wrong with them. Why were they still left in the puddle? Were they secret Psycho Norman Bates-type men, who had battered their mothers to death and still kept them in the wardrobe? Take Tash for example –men should be beating the door down to get to her. Yet she still hadn’t got a man.

‘
Have you seen Rob Beale, recently?’ I asked Tash.

‘I’ve seen him quite a lot,’ she confessed, ‘but honestly, nothing has happened, Bee, I promise. I do have feelings for him, I can’t deny that – but it’s a lost cause. He’s still so cut up about Hazel. He sees me as a friend, and there’s nothing I can do to change that.’

I was amazed. I had no idea that Tash had feelings for him at all.

‘
It’s been over the past few weeks,’ she carried on. ‘When I ran off with him, all those years ago, I did fancy him and yes, the sex was good, but it was so much more than that. We really connected on a level I’ve never felt with anyone else before. He seemed like my soul-mate – we could talk about anything. I ended it all those years ago, because it suddenly started to frighten me. I felt like here was someone I could spend the rest of my life with, but I was eighteen, I wanted to live my life so much more to the full, before I met someone like that. I’d seen it on the films – where couples find their soul-mate and live happy ever after – but I’ve always had this burning, wild desire to live my life dangerously, and that was more important at the time. Now I’m not so sure I did the right thing,’ she added, sitting down on an upturned bucket. ‘Have I let someone in my life get away – someone that was so right for me?’

‘You did the right thing,’ I assured her. ‘We meet people, on the way through our lives, who are right for us, but it’s the wrong time. It’s only very occasionally that two people meet – and it’s the right time for both of them.’

She looked at me. ‘You’re so wise,’ she said, mockingly, throwing a wet sponge at my head. I ducked to one side, and the sponge whizzed past and plopped against the wall.

‘Don’t give up hope - we will find you Mr Right somewhere – even if we have to prise him from Mrs Right, so you can have him,’ I added, teasingly.

She paused. ‘I want to tell you something else,’ she said. ‘I logged on to an Internet chat room the other week.’

Hell, now this sounded interesting. I pulled up another bucket, turned it upside down and sat down next to Tash.

‘Go on,’ I said. ‘This sounds like something that needs to be reported at the next meeting. Did you meet anyone sexy?’

‘Well, I have starting chatting to this one bloke,’ admitted Tash. ‘He’s separated from his wife and we seemed to click straight away. We’ve talked for about three hours every night for the past few weeks – and now he wants to meet me, but I don’t know what to do.’

I agreed with Tash. Meeting someone on an internet chat room could have its dangers. You could meet a Norman Bates and not realize his dead mother was still in the wardrobe.

‘
What if I meet him and it bursts this image I have of him in my mind – a tall, dark, sexy stranger,’ said Tash.

‘
And what if he hasn’t got a floppy fringe,’ I reminded her. She shuddered in horror.

‘I would have to turn round and walk away immediately,’ she said. ‘You know how I feel about a floppy fringe; but seriously – what happens if he’s a four-foot midget, balding with glasses? I know it’s shallow, but I could never speak to him again.’

‘It’s a risk you take, meeting someone on a chat room first, before meeting them in the flesh,’ I said.

‘Yes, you’re right,’ Tash agreed, ‘but if you never take any risks in life, it’s a bit dull.’

‘We’ll discuss it at the next meeting. Keep him dangling until then, and we will decide on a plan of action,’ I said, getting off the bucket and rubbing at my stiff legs. We walked over to our cars.

‘I’m getting too old to sit on a bucket,’ I grumbled. ‘When I was a teenager, it was no problem. Now, I seize up like an old woman.’

‘Like a true Has-been, Hag and Crone,’ said Tash, opening her car door and sliding into the driver’s seat.

At the next meeting, Tash told the rest of the girls about her mystery online hunk.

‘He sounds great,’ said Kaz, enviously.

‘It’s a bit strange,’ admitted Tash. ‘I normally hop into bed with men and then talk later. It’s weird not having even seen someone and already feeling a connection with him.’

‘We all need to be doing something different in our love lives than we’ve been doing in the past,’ said Kaz. ‘So, maybe this is exactly what you need, Tash – to talk to them first, before dropping your knickers.’

‘Have you decided to meet him?’ asked Rach.

‘He wants to meet up next week at a local bar,’ said Tash. ‘I’m in two minds about it. I may put him off for a while. I want to enjoy the mystery of chatting to him a bit longer, before I’m disappointed when I see him. I know he’ll turn out to be about eighty.’

‘Or far too young,’ pointed out Kaz. ‘He could be a mature eighteen- year-old, who loves chatting intimately with an older woman.’

‘That wouldn’t be so bad,’ said Tash. ‘I’ve always fancied myself as a bit of a Mrs Robinson. That might be fun.’

‘Tash, I’m sure he will be exactly what he says,’ I said, ‘a few years older than you and perfectly respectable. Nowadays, it’s acceptable to date someone you have met on the internet.’

‘Mind you, things can go wrong,’ warned Kaz. ‘My mum knows a woman who met someone on an online chat room, and they were going out for six months before the police came round and arrested him for a previous sexual assault. She was devastated. She was forty and divorced, and thought that she had met the love of her life. She’s never been the same since. My mum has to literally drag her out to the Bingo Hall once a month.’

‘I’m sure that won’t happen to Tash,’ I said, shooting a warning look at Kaz. Tash was starting to look a bit green.

‘It does make me feel a bit of a weirdo, though,’ admitted Tash. ‘I’ve never had to resort to using an internet chat room before. If you had told me five years ago, that it was the only way I was going to meet a decent man, I’d have been horrified. I’d have said it was more likely that I was going to shave all my hair off, wear a hessian sack for the rest of my life and never paint my toenails
with Rouge-Noir again.’

I had to agree, that sounded drastic. Tash would never be seen dead without Rouge Noir polish on her perfectly pedicured toes.

‘I used to only have to swing my hips and they would come running,’ she added mournfully.

‘Yes, but you are getting to know him first,’ I pointed out.

‘I suppose so – and he is going to get a nice surprise when he sees me,’ she said cheering up, flicking her black glossy fringe out of her eyes.

‘Anyway, what about finding a man for me?’ demanded Kaz, butting in. ‘You all promised that you would each come up with a suggestion.’

I had brought the model agency portfolio in with me to browse through. There were a couple of possibilities for Kaz. Tony, thirty-one, blond and gorgeous and Keith, twenty-nine, a drop-dead stunning model whom we’d just signed the previous week. Kaz hummed and hawed.

‘I don’t go for blondes,’ she said, finally, snapping the book shut. ‘And if you’ve only just signed Keith, then he’s not exactly rolling in it yet, is he? I might wait until he’s a bit more successful – when his star is rising.’

‘You can’t be that choosy,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Or else you will still be single in ten years’ time.’

‘There’s a builder called Adam, who’s doing some work for my mum at the moment,’ interrupted Tash. ‘He’s gorgeous and definitely isn’t married, as I checked, and…’ we all waited expectantly ‘…he’s single, and he wants to meet you, Kaz,’ she added, triumphantly. ‘I’ve already told him all about you.’

‘I’m not sure about a blind date,’ said Kaz, ‘and I was looking for someone a bit more upmarket than a brickie.’

‘Kaz,’ I exploded with frustration. ‘He may not own half of Cheshire, but if he’s a decent man, then at least go on a blind date with him. You may even like him.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ conceded Kaz. ‘Anyway,’ she added suspiciously to Tash. ‘What have you told him about me – that I’m a sad old bag who can’t find a man by herself, and I need a friend to do it for me?’

‘Give me a little more credit than that,’ sniffed Tash. ‘I am the queen of tact. I said that you were feeling a little down at the moment because of work, and suggested that he take you out for a drink to cheer you up.

‘
Men love feeling protective towards a helpless little woman. We know you aren’t helpless,’ she added quickly, seeing Kazza’s darkening face, ‘but give it a go.’

‘Okay, okay. I’ve got nothing to lose – but one drink, and that's it. Unless it’s a Saturday night and he wins the lottery whilst I’m out with him,’ Kaz added, wickedly.

The minutes were there the following morning, when I arrived at work.

PROGRESS REPORTS.

* Tash has made exciting progress with a dark stranger she met on the internet – Tash to meet him next week, but all the girls also to go the bar and size him up.

Tash to suggest to her internet stranger, that they meet in a crowded popular bar, on a main road, not a back street, and that she would come in her own car.

* Rach suggested that we all log on to the internet to see if we can find mystery hunks, too.

(I said we should wait to see if Tash’s man turned out to be Mr Right instead of a balding, eighty-year-old midget, before we all went plunging in and landed ourselves with a bunch of perverted OAPs.)

* Kaz to go on a blind date with Adam, the builder.

Kaz to give him a fair chance – not look at the size of his wallet constantly throughout the evening.

* Prawn Revenge has been declared a complete success. Apparently Mike has been going hairless trying to find out what the rotting smell upstairs in his house was, and even hired a plumber to take out his entire bathroom suite and inspect all the pipes to see if there was a sewage blockage.

* Still no word from Jen about joining the club. Rach suggested we add Hugh Grant to her list, but Jen would definitely have to buy an English country mansion, if she started dating Hugh. (I am beginning to get a little annoyed with Jen for not replying – and if she’s not careful, Tash’s cast-off eighty-year-old bald midget will be on the top of her list.)