Nine Perfect Strangers

‘My parents are exercise fanatics, but my dad has a junk-food addiction and Mum basically has an eating disorder.’ She reflected. Her mother would not like any aspect of this conversation. ‘Please don’t tell her I said that. She doesn’t really have an eating disorder. She’s just kind of weird about food.’

Even before Zach died Zoe’s mother had been like that. She couldn’t bear to see lavish displays of food, which was a problem, seeing as she’d married a man with a big extended Italian family. Heather suffered from heartburn and stomach cramps and other ‘digestive issues’ she referred to only obliquely. She never saw food as just food. She always had some fierce emotional response to it. She was starving or bloated or craving something specific and unattainable.

‘Anyway, what about you?’ she asked Frances. She wanted to shift the focus; she’d revealed far too much about herself and her family to this stranger. ‘Why did you decide to do this?’

‘Oh, you know: I’m run-down, I’ve done something to my back, I have a cold I can’t seem to shake, I suppose I could do with losing a few kilos . . . just the normal middle-aged stuff.’

‘How old are your kids?’ asked Zoe.

Frances smiled. ‘No kids.’

‘Oh.’ Zoe was taken aback, worried that she might have made some kind of sexist faux pas. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry.’ Frances said. ‘It was my choice not to have children. I just never saw myself as a mother. Ever. Even when I was a kid.’

But you’re so motherly, thought Zoe.

‘No husband either,’ said Frances. ‘Just two ex-husbands. No boyfriend. I’m very single.’

It was cute the way she said boyfriend.

‘I’m very single too,’ said Zoe, and Frances smiled, as if Zoe had said something cute.

‘I thought I was in love with someone recently but he wasn’t who he said he was,’ said Frances. ‘It turned out to be an internet “romance scam”.’ She made quote marks with her fingers.

Oh my God, thought Zoe. How stupid would you have to be?

‘What do yo

u do for a living?’ She changed the subject because she was literally going bright red with embarrassment for the woman.

‘I write romance novels,’ said Frances. ‘Or I did. I might be in need of a career change.’

‘Romance novels,’ repeated Zoe. It was getting worse. She tried to keep her face neutral. Please, God, don’t let it be erotica.

‘Are you a reader?’ asked Frances.

‘Sometimes,’ said Zoe. Never, ever romance. ‘What made you become a romance writer?’

‘Well, when I was about fifteen I read Jane Eyre and it was a strange, sad time in my life – my dad had just died, and I was hormonal and grieving and just very impressionable. And when I got to that famous line – you know the one: Reader, I married him – it just had this profound effect on me. I’d sit in the bath and murmur to myself, “Reader, I married him”, and then I’d just sob. It had remarkable staying power. Reader, I married – ooohhh!’ She demonstrated herself sobbing dramatically like a teenage girl, hand to her forehead.

Zoe laughed.

Frances said, ‘You’ve read Jane Eyre, right?’

‘I think I saw the movie once,’ said Zoe.

‘Ah well,’ said Frances sympathetically. ‘Anyway, I know that Reader, I married him line has become virtually a cliché now it’s referenced so often: Reader, I divorced him. Reader, I murdered him. But for me, at that time of my life, it was . . . well, profound. I remember being amazed that four words could affect me in that way. So I guess I just developed an interest in the power of words. The first romance story I ever wrote was heavily influenced by Charlotte Brontë, except without the madwoman in the attic. My leading man was a heady mix of Mr Rochester and Rob Lowe.’

‘Rob Lowe!’ said Zoe.

‘I had his poster on my wall,’ said Frances. ‘I can still taste his lips. Very smooth and papery. Matt gloss.’

Zoe giggled. ‘I felt the same way about Justin Bieber.’

‘There might even be one of my books here,’ said Frances. ‘There often is in places like this.’ She scanned the shelves of paperbacks then smiled, a hint of pride. ‘Bingo.’

She stood up, clutching her back, went to one of the shelves and squatted down to pull out a battered-looking chunky paperback. ‘There you go.’ She handed it to Zoe and sat back down on the couch with a grunt.