Fallen Women. Sue Welfare

they finished off the questions and Kate nipped out to check on the food, while Bill checked the form through.

      Joe followed Kate into the kitchen. ‘This is totally and utterly crazy,’ he hissed, pulling another beer out of the fridge.

      ‘What is?’

      ‘What do you mean what is? She’s got crap taste in men. She’ll end up picking some nutter and we’ll be the ones sitting up till three in the morning listening to her going on and on about how bloody awful he is to her.’

      ‘You mean, I will,’ Kate said, pushing a thick tendril of dark red-brown hair back behind her ear. She kept it long even when it was fashionable to have a crop or a bob. Naturally wavy, her hair framed a gamine face and huge grey eyes. Handsome rather than pretty, Kate Harvey had a face that lingered in the mind like a tune. A sensual bluesy tune that is, not popsy-pink cute commercial drek.

      ‘Well, don’t say that I didn’t warn you. You know what she’s like.’

      ‘And exactly what am I like, Joe?’ Chrissie said, right on cue, as she stepped in to the kitchen behind him.

      He spun round, reddening furiously. ‘I was just saying you need to be careful with this dating stuff, meet somewhere public. We’ve all read things in the papers.’ He was speaking fast, the words crisp, sharp and defensive. ‘Don’t give them your address or phone number. You don’t know who they are, they could tell you anything. Anything at all.’

      Nice recovery, Kate thought, stirring the curry.

      Chrissie lifted her eyebrows. ‘Oh right, and so real live men, talking face to face, always tell you truth, do they, Joe?’ She poured herself another long shot of Archers.

      ‘No. You’ve got to be careful, that’s all I’m saying.’

      Chrissie rolled her eyes heavenwards as if to say she didn’t need nannying by anyone, least of all Joe. ‘How long till we eat?’

      ‘Few more minutes,’ replied Kate.

      Back in the office, at the computer, Bill was still reading through Chrissie’s application form. ‘Do they have women on here as well?’ he asked, as Kate and Chrissie came back in.

      ‘Uhuh, in fact just about anything your pretty little heart desires.’ Kate slipped back into the seat as Bill vacated it and moved the cursor across to one of the menus.

      ‘Here you are, darling, no need to go without, what are you looking for? Male, female, bisexual, gay, lesbian, transsexual, transvestite. If you can’t find anything you fancy there, Bill, they’ve also got a category “Other, please specify”.’

      ‘Sweet Jesus.’

      ‘You want to knock yourself up a profile while we’re here?’ Kate asked with a grin

      ‘Not at this precise moment, no.’

      ‘So did we miss anything out?’ Kate enquired, glancing back at the screen.

      ‘Do you only want to see profiles of members with photos?’

      ‘Oh yes,’ said Chrissie, who was on a roll now. ‘I’d like to see who it is I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.’

      Joe shot Kate another warning glance.

      ‘I’d take a chance if I were you,’ Bill was saying, ‘looks aren’t everything.’

      ‘Presumably that’s something you’ve learned from personal experience, is it, eh, Bill?’ said Chrissie.

      ‘Ouch,’ Kate said. ‘Saucer of milk, for this table please.’

      The two of them enjoyed needling each other so much, although it always seemed to Kate that it wasn’t so much a fancying thing, more that they were both desperate to out-clever each other.

      When he first moved in to their street she and Chrissie had suspected Bill was gay, for no other good reason than he was tall and dark-haired, softly spoken, nicely preserved and kept himself in good shape. He was a photographer, which kind of fitted the profile.

      Then one summer, when the kids were smaller, they had invited loads of friends over for a barbecue and Bill had been included somewhere along the line. Half a dozen drunken musos jamming away at the bottom of the garden, picking out Neil Young tunes under a starry sky, lots of very right-on conversation and barefoot women cradling sleeping babies and wine glasses, rocking buggies, sitting around putting the world to rights; it had been a good evening.

      When the party was whittling down to the well-known, well-loved hardcore, Bill had had a huge row with some little blonde bird, who stood in the middle of their patio, hands on hips, letting off a great tirade of abuse.

      Seconds later they’d all watched Bill leg it out of Kate’s garden like a rat up a drainpipe, bolting back to his house, vaulting over the back fence, although unfortunately the little blonde had seen him go and hared down the alley to cut him off.

      ‘You bastard, Bill, you think you can just screw me and throw me out, do you? I’m not like your other women. You bastard! Talk to me. Talk to me. Bill? Bill? Let me in. Let me in. I love you, I love you,’ she had wailed, all bottle blonde hair, sun bed tan and white stilettos. So, definitely not gay then.

      Everyone at the party was totally enthralled and shuffled out into the street with their drinks to watch the performance. By this time the little blonde was hammering on the front door and then began throwing handfuls of gravel up at the window. When that didn’t work and Bill didn’t come out, she’d thrown a milk bottle and then another one, followed by his precious red geraniums in their terracotta pots, until the front steps and the light well outside the basement window were totally covered in shards of glass and bits of pot plant. Then she had thrown something else, something bigger, that had smashed the main pane in the bay window at street level. Finally, exhausted and wild with frustration, she had burst into tears, jumped into her car and driven away, tyres screaming, horn blaring. When Bill came out a few minutes later, looking sheepish and scarlet with embarrassment, everyone had cheered furiously.

      Kate glanced up at them; she and Joe and Bill and Chrissie went back a long way. Although Bill’s taste in women didn’t appear to have improved significantly over the years.

      ‘Play nicely, you two. Just because Bill’s latest woman was gorgeous but – but …’ Kate winced; it was too late to pull out of the dive where she was headed. ‘Is there any way I can put this nicely?’

      ‘No need to pull your punches, she was decorative but deeply, deeply dumb,’ said Bill, taking another slurp of his beer. ‘Which was a real shame, because she was a lovely girl, but what I’m really looking for is a good woman. No, make that a great woman. Someone you don’t have to explain the punch line of every joke to. It was bloody terrifying being with someone so young, she treated me like this heroic super stud, someone who knew everything, in and out of bed, someone who had all the answers.’

      ‘Oh right, that’s it, rub it in, why don’t you,’ said Joe.

      ‘No, I’m serious. It was flattering being picked up by someone like her but not once I realised she was looking for a father figure. It was bloody awful, I totally felt responsible for her,’ and then he grinned, ‘although actually I thought that Chrissie was talking about me, not my choice in women. Anything else we have to do before we send off Madam’s application?’

      Kate glanced back at the screen. ‘Not really, we just need a pseudonym now.’

      ‘Oh, this should be fun,’ said Joe in a voice that suggested it would be anything but.

      ‘How about Vulnerable Venus?’ suggested Bill after they’d tried out a few rude ones and a few clever ones and a few downright daft ones.

      ‘Oh please,’ said Chrissie, pulling a face.

      ‘It’s got a ring to it,’ said Joe.

      ‘And you can always change it later,’ said Bill. No one