An Autumn Crush

by Milly Johnson

  Juliet floated through the front door of Blackberry Court the next evening with Coco ‘in tow’. She had just spent the last hour in the illustrious personal space of Piers Winstanley-Black and his cloud of expensive aftershave. She was sure his pupils were dilated when they made contact over the Brownlee vs Goldman file. It wasn’t her imagination, he was edging closer to her net, she could feel it. But like a patient fisherman, she would wait until her trout came near enough to tickle.

  And to top a very nice day, the delicious aroma of stew curled up Juliet’s nostrils as she pushed open the flat door.

  ‘Oh. My. God. What is that beautiful smell?’

  ‘Beef hash and dumplings,’ answered Floz, who was sitting at the dining-table scribbling work-notes. ‘I made enough for a few helpings if you’re interested.’

  ‘Oh, you divine creature,’ said Coco, kicking off his shoes. ‘I’m deffo staying for tea. I’ve only had a Crunch Corner all day. Are we having cake afterwards? I should have desserts to hand at all times with my sugar levels. Marlene’s off sick and we had a right rush on so I couldn’t even run out to Greggs.’

  ‘I knew you’d be a perfect flat-mate, Floz,’ smiled Juliet, sliding off her stilettos and wiggling her toes. And that was the truth too. This was only Floz’s seventh evening in Blackberry Court but it seemed as if she had been there forever. The flat felt warmer and it was so nice to come home to the lights on and company and smells like these.

  ‘I thought Guy had been round again and brought us dinner,’ said Juliet. She saw a little head-shake from Floz when she mentioned his name and wondered why they seemed to have taken such an instant aversion to each other. She didn’t expect them to start snogging when they met, but neither did she expect whatever had happened at their initial meet to scar them both for life.

  When Floz mentioned that Guy had popped around on Monday night, she hadn’t said much more than he had forgotten she had moved in and was embarrassed by that. No, he hadn’t introduced himself properly, in fact he had been in and out within a minute. Yes, Floz had presumed from his physique and looks that he was Juliet’s twin and not some burglar who happened to have a key. Juliet noticed how clipped Floz’s tone was as she recounted the story. For whatever reason, she hadn’t been impressed by Guy. Juliet wondered if he had had his scary Heathcliff face on when they met.

  Juliet being Juliet had then rung Guy on his mobile and demanded to know why he hadn’t told her he’d been around and met her new flat-mate.

  ‘I’ve been too busy!’ he snapped.

  ‘What – helping Steve Feast out with his stupid wrestling?’ huffed Juliet. She had a special tone reserved for her brother’s best friend – one of disdain and dislike, but tempered with the slightest begrudging gratitude for all he had done for Guy in his dark days.

  ‘Anyway, what did you think?’ she went on.

  ‘Think about what?’ hedged Guy, not wanting to get drawn into verdicts.

  ‘Floz – what did you think about her?’

  ‘I didn’t think anything about her,’ said Guy. ‘She was half-undressed when I burst in so I made my excuses and left.’

  And he refused to be drawn on any more detail than that. From this, Juliet deduced that Floz hadn’t made an impression on him either. Which was a shame because he was far too nice to be alone and it might have been good for them both if there had been a mutual attraction. Even if Guy was the boy she used to batter with her Tiny Tears doll and fight with over their jointly owned Stylophone. (She always won, despite the size difference because it was imprinted in his DNA: ‘Thou shalt always be gentle with the fairer sex.’)

  There were so many ostentatious sods out there charming the drawers off women – and gay men, as Juliet had seen with the disaster that was Coco’s love-life – with frilly false promises that Guy and his quiet non-flash solidity was totally overlooked. Correction, with his height and build he couldn’t fail to pull in a first glance, but he never managed to secure the second – and that was the important one.

  Juliet popped the cork out of a bottle of Cab Sav and poured three generous glasses.

  ‘Here, stop working and have a swig,’ she said, nosying over Floz’s shoulder. ‘What are you writing?’

  ‘Valentine’s cards,’ replied Floz. ‘Smutty ones for Status Kwo.’

  ‘ “I think you’re super smashing, I just love you to bits. I cannot wait to kiss you. And squeeze your gorgeous XXXs”,’ Coco read over her other shoulder. ‘What a brilliant job you have, Floz.’

  ‘Not exactly Keats, is it?’ she smiled back at him.

  ‘It would work for me,’ mused Juliet. ‘If Piers Winstanley-Black sent it, anyway.’

  ‘Who’s Piers Winstanley-Black?’ asked Floz.

  ‘You haven’t told her about PWB yet?’ Coco feigned a faint. ‘You must be the only person in the universe who isn’t aware of his name.’

  ‘Ignore him. Piers is only the most gorgeous man in the universe,’ replied Juliet with a girly sigh. ‘Solicitor, thirty-nine wonderful years old, eyes the colour of a Caribbean sea and lips like red pillows.’

  ‘Yuk,’ said Coco. ‘You were doing so well until you got to the lips part, Ju.’

  ‘Single?’ enquired Floz.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Juliet with vehemence. ‘I don’t lust after any taken property. Not after what happened to me.’

  ‘What happened to you, Juliet?’

  ‘You haven’t told her that either!’ gasped Coco. He sank onto the sofa and got ready for the floorshow.

  ‘Where to begin?’ laughed Juliet, reaching in the drawer behind her and pulling out a half-eaten box of Thorntons which she handed over to Floz to choose from. Even in that they matched – Juliet preferred all the pralines, Floz didn’t. Jack Sprat and his wife didn’t have anything on them.

  ‘Well, I was married to Roger for six years,’ Juliet began. ‘Last July – two weeks after our anniversary, when he bonked me in every room of our brand new three-bedroomed house – I came home early from work to find him rather courteously preparing to pack a suitcase for me.’

  Floz’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘Apparently, our marriage was over. And it was all my fault.’ There was a brief pause whilst Juliet grabbed a couple of pralines and Floz’s mouth sprang further open. ‘Roger explained that all the little things that had once attracted him to me had become big things that revolted him. Somewhere along the line I had ceased to be amusing and become raucous. Stopped being saucy and become vulgar. I was no longer a voluptuous goddess but a fat cow. That was the reason, he said, why he was having an affair with my best friend, Hattie.’

  ‘Our best friend,’ amended Coco. ‘We had all been at school together since nursery. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t spotted it. My intuition is usually as sharp as Sinbad the sailor’s cutlass.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Floz, for want of a better word. ‘What did you do?’ She wouldn’t have fancied being the ‘best friend’ after Juliet had found that out.

  ‘I let him have his say, of course,’ purred Juliet, in the manner of Fenella Fielding in Carry On Screaming. ‘Then I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and chucked him and the empty suitcase out of the front door. Then I threw the contents of his wardrobe out of the bedroom window for him so he could pack his suitcase instead of mine. Oh, then I rang one of the solicitors I work with.’

  Karren Brookside was an evil Bitch Queen from hell. She didn’t just get blood for her (female only) clients, she got the veins, arteries, all internal organs and both testicles. Then she served them up on gold plates with a nice 1945 Château Pétrus. Karren Brookside made Hannibal Lecter look like Anne of Green Gables.

  ‘Roger’s balls were in his wallet – so that was the best place to kick him,’ said Juliet, who seemed to be enjoying the story of her divorce. ‘He was begging me to take him back and forget and forgive everything after a month of Karren’s savagery.’

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘No, I did not,’ replied Juliet, hor
rified that Floz had even considered she might. Unlike her brother, Juliet had always had a great sense of self-worth, and woe betide anyone who tried to mess with her.

  Juliet had made her errors with men in the past, but once she had realized she wasn’t top of their agenda, she had cut and run. Her first boyfriend, Pete, was a nice enough bloke but when she twigged that all those cosy nights in were because he didn’t want his mates to realize he was seeing a rather large lady, he was history. Then there was Gary, who never turned up without bringing chocolates and spent a fortune on taking her out for meals, insisting she have dessert. She thought she had landed a lottery win to find a man who celebrated her curves so enthusiastically. Then she discovered his secret stash of American videos: huge women-whales being fed cream cakes, unable to move and totally dependent on their feeder. After finishing with him, it took her weeks to look an eclair in the face again.

  ‘What about you, Floz?’ asked Coco. ‘How’s your love-life been?’

  Floz looked a bit shy to have the spotlight shone on her.

  ‘Couple of boyfriends in my teens but nothing that serious, married for ten years to Chris. We just drifted apart and divorced three years ago.’

  That was a bit boring, thought both Juliet and Coco, who had been hoping for more of a trade-off of information. Coco pressed for more.

  ‘How do you just drift apart?’

  ‘I don’t know. We just fell out of love with each other.’ Floz shrugged shyly.

  ‘No one since?’ poked Juliet.

  ‘No one,’ replied Floz too quickly. ‘What about you? Anyone since Roger?’

  ‘No,’ said Juliet flatly. ‘No, no one since him – I’ve been saving myself for Piers Winstanley-Black. But a year is a long time to go without sex. If we ever do get it together he’ll find my fanny full of cobwebs,’ she chuckled, making Coco shriek with disgust. ‘I don’t know how you’ve done three years of celibacy, Floz.’

  ‘I’ve only done a month,’ said Coco. ‘And that’s been bad enough.’

  ‘What’s your story, Coco?’ asked Floz. ‘Is that your real name?’

  ‘It is now,’ he nodded. ‘You can tell her if you like, Ju.’

  Coco covered his ears whilst Juliet leaned over to Floz and whispered, ‘His real name is Raymond, but he hates it. One must only ever refer to him as Coco.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ said Floz, who couldn’t think of anyone who looked less like a Raymond. Probably because one of her headmasters had been called that and he was a huge, square man who played rugby and spoke with a Lee Marvin voice. ‘Is that because you’ve got eyes the colour of cocoa?’

  ‘Floz, I’m in love with you,’ said Coco, clasping his hands together with delight. ‘What a lovely thing to say.’

  ‘No, it’s because he wants to be Coco Chanel,’ said Juliet. ‘His shop is covered with pictures of her. Plus it’s his favourite perfume.’

  ‘Anyway, back to my love-life: awful.’ Coco ripped a tissue out of a nearby box.

  ‘He falls in love at the drop of a hat. And they’re all dysfunctional bastards,’ cut in Juliet. ‘He couldn’t pick a good man if he landed in his lap with a recommendation from God Himself.’

  ‘I don’t know what happened with Darren,’ said Coco. ‘One minute everything was fine, the next he wouldn’t answer my texts or take my phone calls. He just disappeared. No explanation, no goodbye – nothing.’ His eyes filled up with bright tears.

  ‘Silence is a cruel weapon to use,’ Floz said gently.

  ‘I know,’ agreed Juliet. ‘Not having the decency to say “we’re over” to someone is gutless and vicious. And Darren would have known that Coco would rip himself apart over it to find the reason why it happened. Not that he cared enough to spare him that.’

  ‘You’ll have heard this before, but you really are worth more than that sort of treatment.’ Floz’s voice was soft and kind. ‘It’s not respectful – and do you really want a man who treats you with such little thought?’

  ‘I know,’ said Coco, dabbing his eyes. ‘At least, my head knows, my heart has a little catching up to do. Of course, he may just be taking some time away to sort his feelings out. Men are like elastic bands, apparently . . .’

  ‘Coco, what possible excuse could he have? Unless he was the new Terry Waite and had both hands tied to a radiator by international terrorists, there is absolutely no excuse at all for that sort of crap behaviour,’ said Juliet, a little impatiently now because they’d had this conversation too many times. ‘I can’t understand why you’d want him back anyway. If he did have the absolute cheek to turn up in your life again, I would tell him to f—’

  Coco clamped his hands over his ears as Juliet launched into a diatribe.

  ‘Closure helps to move us on,’ said Floz, counterbalancing Juliet’s Ian Paisley-type rant with her own softer perspective. ‘It’s hard when you don’t get it.’

  ‘Coco, I’ve told you before: if they don’t give you closure, you have to take it for yourself. His gutless, bastard silence is all the sign of closure that you need.’ Aware that her words were hard, Juliet put her arm around Coco and pulled him into her shoulder. ‘Floz is right, you are worth so much more. And your dream man is out there somewhere with your name tattooed on his arse.’

  Coco half-laughed, half-cried at that.

  ‘Least he wasn’t a pervert like the one before.’ Juliet winked at Floz. She knew telling that particular story would cheer Coco up.

  ‘Perfume rep. Courted me, moved in with me and then decided he wasn’t sure if he was fully gay. He wanted to sleep with a woman to see if he’d like it. How bloody disgusting can you get,’ snarled Coco through gritted teeth.

  It made Floz giggle to see Coco shivering at the thought of such a major perversion.

  ‘I think we all need a decent boyfriend,’ Juliet said, remembering Coco’s recent idea. ‘Yeeesss indeedy. Let’s sign onto a site and find some hot males. They are as rare as rocking-horse dung at this age.’ She made a grab for her laptop on the bookshelf, opened it and logged on.

  ‘Try singlebods.com,’ chirped Coco. ‘That’s what Marlene used. She said it’s the best one at the moment.’

  ‘So you don’t fancy your brother’s friend Steve then?’ Floz asked Juliet.

  ‘Steve Feast? You are so joking.’ Juliet laughed hard. ‘He’s a complete and utter knob. Always has been.’

  ‘He went to school with us too,’ explained Coco. ‘He was always pulling Ju’s plaits or running off with her hat so she would chase him.’

  ‘And he grew up to be even more puerile,’ continued Juliet, topping up the wine glasses. ‘I used to see him in pubs picking up two women at once on his shoulders to prove how strong he was or showing off his muscles with cut-off T-shirts.’

  ‘He’s all right, really,’ put in Coco.

  ‘No he isn’t, Coco. He’s a big ponce. Always chasing women and none of them stick around very long – which tells you something.’

  ‘He’s been a very good friend to Guy,’ Coco added – then, from the look that Juliet threw at him, realized he shouldn’t have said that. ‘Whoops.’ He put his fingertips to his lips.

  Floz wondered what Coco had said that was so wrong, but didn’t feel as if she should ask.

  Juliet pulled her focus back to the job in hand. ‘Okay. Right, you go first, Floz.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Floz said. Her voice was as firm as her vocal cords would allow. ‘I don’t want to do internet dating.’

  But Juliet didn’t hear her. She was on a mission now. ‘What’s your ideal man look like?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m really not interested—’

  ‘Oh please,’ said Coco, giddy as a kipper now and clapping his hands excitedly. ‘It’ll be a laugh, especially if we all do it. We’ll put your details in first.’

  ‘Not interested in the slightest.’ Floz was adamant. Juliet, however, had a bit of a problem hearing the word ‘no’. She tried a different tack to persuade Floz to join in.

  ‘
Okay then, humour me: if you were to do this, what would he look like? I promise I won’t do anything with the information. I’m just being nosy.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Okay then.’ Floz tried to think. If she painted her ideal man, Juliet would pick up on the fact that she was describing Guy. Guy who obviously hated her on sight so much that he backed off from her like Count Dracula did from Van Helsing. So she lied and plumped for everything that was not Guy sodding Miller. ‘Not too tall, fair hair . . . brown eyes.’

  ‘Dress?’

  ‘Suit.’

  ‘Job?’

  ‘Something in an office, I think.’

  ‘Oh please do it with us,’ begged Coco. ‘It will be such a laugh.’

  ‘No,’ said Floz, with steel in her voice. ‘But if you two are adamant, then take my advice: be very careful. Don’t pick someone too far away to meet up with, and when you do click with someone, arrange to see them as soon as you can. You don’t want to fall for someone who doesn’t really exist as they paint themselves. Meeting them is the only way to determine if you really fancy each other or not.’

  ‘Oooh, you sound as if you’re speaking from experience, Floz,’ said Juliet, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  ‘No,’ returned Floz. ‘I’m speaking from much reading of magazine articles, much watching of Jeremy Kyle and good old-fashioned commonsense. Be very, very careful.’

  Floz lay in bed that night unable to get to sleep because something had awoken inside her. Feelings she had pressed down on for so long sprang up like an escapee jack-in-a-box and wouldn’t be squashed down again. And it was all Juliet’s brother’s fault. She couldn’t understand why he had affected her so much and why it stung that he had run off like that. How dare he make her feel that bad about herself? She careered between hurt and anger, both emotions keeping away the possibility of any sleep. She hadn’t fancied anyone in ages – in fact, she’d wondered if she ever would again. Then in swanned Guy Miller and made her realize that her heart was more than capable of revving up interest in someone. The trouble was, when a heart opened, vulnerability was the first thing to rush in.