Nine Perfect Strangers

‘Will younger readers even recognise the term “Blind Freddy”?’ asked Jo, who floated alongside Frances doing a line edit. She sat astride a giant lead pencil. ‘Could it be ableist?’

‘What’s interesting is that I’m a fictional character,’ said her internet scammer from the back of the sleigh, where he sat between Henry and Sol, his arms around their shoulders. ‘Yet she loved me more than either of you.’

‘You’re nothing but a scam,’ said Sol. ‘She never even met you, let alone fucked you, cocksucker!’

‘!!!!’ cried Jo.

‘I agree. Delete,’ advised Gillian. ‘My mother reads your books.’

‘As her loving ex-husbands, it’s our duty to beat you to a pulp,’ said Henry to Paul Drabble. ‘Scram, scam.’

‘Life is nothing but a scam,’ said Gillian. ‘It’s all just a giant illusion.’

‘Scram, scam,’ chuckled Sol. ‘Good one.’

He and Henry fist-bumped.

‘You’re both far too old for fist-bumping,’ sighed Frances, but her ex-husbands were busy bonding. She always knew they’d like each other if they ever met. She should have invited them both to her fiftieth.

She realised that Paul Drabble had vanished, as easy as that. There was no pain in the empty space he’d left behind. It turned out he’d meant nothing at all. Not a thing.

‘He was just a credit on my bank balance,’ she told Gillian.

‘Debit, you idiot,’ said Gillian.

‘Debit, credi

t,’ said Frances. ‘Whatever. I am completely over him.’

‘I was the one who meant something,’ said a child’s voice. It was Ari, Paul Drabble’s son.

Frances didn’t turn around. She could not look at him.

‘I thought I was going to be his mother,’ she said to Gillian. ‘It’s the only time in my life I even considered being a mother.’

‘I know,’ said Gillian.

‘So embarrassing,’ whispered Frances. ‘I am so deeply embarrassed.’

‘It’s a loss, Frances,’ said Gillian. ‘You’re allowed to grieve your loss even if it’s embarrassing.’

The snow fell silently for days as Frances grieved her loss of an imaginary boy and Gillian sat beside her, head bowed in sympathy, until they were frozen, snow-covered figures.

‘What about my dad?’ asked Frances in the spring, when the snow melted, butterflies danced and bees buzzed. ‘Why isn’t he here on my trip? I’m the one writing this thing, Gillian, not you. Let’s get Dad on board.’

‘I’m here,’ said her dad from the back of the sleigh.

He was alone, wearing the khaki safari suit he wore for Christmas lunch 1973, captured forever in the framed photo on her writing desk. She reached back and took his hand. ‘Hello, Dad.’

‘You were always so crazy about the boys.’ Her dad shook his head. Frances smelled his Old Spice aftershave.

‘You died when I was too young,’ said Frances. ‘That’s why I made such bad choices in men. I was trying to replace you.’

‘Cliché?’ asked Jo from astride her lead pencil, which was bucking like a horse. ‘Whoa, boy!’

‘Stop editing me,’ said Frances to Jo. ‘You’re retired. Go look after your grandchildren.’

‘Don’t even pretend you have unresolved daddy issues – you do not,’ said Gillian. ‘Take responsibility.’