Woman Coming Soon

Chapter One

I NOW SUPPOSE IT BEGAN the very second Kasha set foot in my house although I failed to notice it at the time. I was blinded by love, you see, love for my husband who tended to be a bit selfish in returning the favor. No, David was much too busy pub-crawling with his mates and squandering his affections, I suspected, on other women. Only a theory, but there’d been the peculiar perfume trailing behind him like a jet stream, a strange pair of knickers in the Bentley, and the rampant rumors regarding his step-mum but that’s another story. In this story, sleepy-eyed David could have shagged any woman he pleased and, according to the tabloids, he pleased almost every woman in London. Especially Kasha who decided to steal him from me.

Talk about humiliation! Pictures of David, alongside a gloating Kasha, hit the front pages of the tabloids while the paparazzi hit me. Eek! They jumped out at me from behind bushes and ran me over on bikes.

Poor little rich girl! they jeered. Poor Sophie Whitehead! Unceremoniously chucked! Done in by your very own chauffeur. Ha. Ha!

Ha. Ha. Indeed. My cheeks were hot enough to launch a spaceship.

Huge horrid woman in the purple two-piece began to heckle and wheeze. Woody Allen-ish, I should think. Wasn’t the girl like a daughter to you, Miss Whitehead?

Daughter? How kind, given our eleven-year age difference. I somehow managed to duck into a dodgy pub to medicate on gin. A lot of gin, to be exact. Enough to level a pirate.

I like gin, I told the bartender as he carefully set down a delicious double. Gin is my friend.

He snickered. I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Your friend is making you talk funny.

I shot him my best, blurry-eyed look. I’m going to kill. Did you happen to know that? I can be lethal when I have to be. I nodded my head off. I’m a killer.

The insensitive barkeep didn’t seem to care. I’d tie myself to that barstool if I were you, miss. You’re about to topple off. With that he dashed away to attend to an empty bar. Hmm. I had plenty of time to think while he dusted a few caddies of condiments and pretended to sweep the floor. Did this guy not understand gratuities? He was either independently wealthy or thick. Thick, I decided.

When he returned I attempted to straighten him out. I don’t see a Jaguar parked outside, sir. Or, better still, a Rolls Royce. So, I assume you have to work for a living. Via a bus.

He was quick to bark at me. And that would concern you how?

Well, I’m worried about you. I’m worried about the water being cut off in your flat. And I’m worried that you won’t be able to pay your electrical bills either with that callous attitude. You just won’t. Not when you have the heart of a hangman. I chased the olive in my empty glass with a finger. A really good bartender would care that I’m going to kill a people. Two people, to be truthful. And it’s your job to care. And to listen. That’s what deeply-depressed sods tip you for, in case you didn’t know. I scooped up a quid from the stack of bills on the counter and put it back in my purse.

He vaguely shook his head. Awe. I was going to buy my new car with that, Miss Whitehead. And possibly a house. You are Miss Whitehead, aren’t you? The woman in the papers?

I twirled my finger in the air like a lasso. Guilty! I did it. Whatever it was.

Well, Miss Whitehead. You might want to go home before you hurt yourself.

Make me.

He flashed an evil grin. I’d like to.

Well, sure. Proposition a drunk, why don’t you? But with a bit of effort I was able to focus on his blurry face. My god! He was about the best-looking guy in all of London. Perhaps the UK. Eric Bana, almost. All right, then. He was the best looking Australian in the UK. He was Hector, absolutely, before the dragging of the corpse. You know. Behind the chariot and all. Do you want to be my new chauffeur? I asked idiotically.

He smacked his chops. Will you still love me in the morning? That’s the question.

Easy for you to joke, Hector. They’re laughing at me out there, you realize. Viciously laughing. Grown men and women swarming like killer bees over my disintegration. Hilarious, yes. Ha. Ha. She stole him like a highway robber, you know. Kasha did. And she’s salting him away until he’s thoroughly used up. Sexually I mean.

Hector’s eyes glistened. I could likely help you out in that department.

I swirled my fresh martini. Do you know what they’re saying, Hector? The papers, I mean?

He pointed to his nametag. The name is Timothy. But call me Tim. It would be easier for you, I think.

He was talking down to me but I didn’t really care. Hector-Tim could say anything he wanted, he was just that deadly. They’re calling me the dowdy heiress. And they’re calling her an authentic Russian princess. Isn’t that sad?

I couldn’t see any tears in Hector-Tim’s eyes at all. Only curiosity. I had him spellbound, I was certain, so I rambled on. I rescued that ingrate from a shelter, you see. And did she thank me? Oh, yes. She thanked me, all right. By nipping off with my husband. In the dead of day. In front of the neighbors. They likely cheered. Very sad indeed.

He coughed. Well, if it’s any consolation you’re beautiful. His attempt to boast my esteem cheered me up, if ever so slightly. He was finally doing his job. Stunning actually.

At that point I dared to confront my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Holy smoke! Rain had turned my dark hair into the wild springy curls of Diana Ross.

Just then the pub door flew open and in marched Potsy, the cook I inherited from my mum, a Goliath of a woman with a stern look on her face. As she came thumping forward I whispered to Hector-Tim. If she hits me you’ll need to call the authorities. I would but I’ll be knocked out cold.

In one great swoop she hauled me off my stool. That will be enough, Sophie. Quite enough. You’ve had your fun now. I’ve finished up the shopping and have been waiting for ages in the car. We need to get going home now.

She was quite pretty, really, our Potsy, with soft grey curls framing her angry face. Her outdated camel coat needed burning although only a lion would dare tell her. Hector-Tim is coming with us, I told her, as she started to haul me away. He’s going to be my new chauffeur.

Right, then. Over her shoulder she called back to the bar. If you come within ten kilometers of her, Hector-Tim, I shall have you lynched.

I sat there sulking as Potsy went screeching through the streets of London in her estate car built in about 1812. It rattled. It complained. It did everything but spit us out on the road. It was depressing all around… since nobody seemed to care about me at all. Except maybe Hector-Tim.

I think I’m in love with Hector-Tim, Pots.

You’re crackers. Absolute crackers.

You don’t know him like I do.

Her face slipped into a rigid structure as she tried not to laugh but the corners of her mouth betrayed her. She was cracking up inside. Well, several hours in a bar can do that to people. It’s called drunkenness.

He’s my friend.

She snorted. Well, agreed. You’re short on those. And with your new sudden taste for alcohol he just may come in handy.

I clammed up. I had a lot to brood about, actually. Imagine David deserting me the week of my thirtieth birthday. Was I a fossil in the making, did he think? Of course, he did! You should have seen the pity pouring from his eyes as he stood at our front doors, bags packed.

Going somewhere? I leapt like a crouching tiger from behind my grandfather’s clock.

You’ve been spying on me!

Really? When my husband is packing up and preparing to go off without leaving even a note I’m not allowed to spy? I was good at it, you see, spying. Given that my great uncle’s distant cousin had written Sherlock Holmes.

David shuffled his Bruno Magli loafers. You were watching me! He looked guilty. Not like Jude Law at all, as everybody seemed to think, with his face now growing indignantly red and a tear welling in his shifty right eye. No, he looked more like Jude Law fifty years from now and after Christmas dinner.

‘Can you imagine?’ Evil Sophie quipped. It’s a bad habit I have, you see, talking to myself in the second person, a carryover from childhood days when I had no friends to speak of at all. Similar to modern day, one might say. ‘Just imagine, Sophie! When David is old he’ll pass methane gas more profusely than a herd of cattle. Disgusting! You’re lucky he’s abandoning you. Really you are.’

Continued shuffling by David-the-defector. You were supposed to be at your charity.

Oh, pardon me! Is there something you’d like to tell me or am I being too curious?

He emitted a sigh that shook the foyer. I didn’t want it to be this way, Soph. You know I didn’t.

What way? I wrapped my widow-grey jumper tight around me.

I’m leaving, I’m afraid. This isn’t working for me anymore.

Well, run me over with a tram, why don’t you? I was devastated.

‘Don’t wail, Sophie!’ Evil warned. ‘It’s unbecoming. Do not curl up into a prenatal ball and do not howl like a banshee.’

Lovely of you to tell me, David. Obviously the nine years we spent together meant nothing to you at all.

Just then the lovely, green-eyed Kasha came trudging down the stairs. She was loaded down like a donkey with bags and was dragging my fake leopard coat behind her.

Kasha! I cried, relieved. I’m so glad you’re here! David is deserting me! I didn’t understand, you see. David with luggage. Kasha with luggage. Moron that I was I just didn’t get it.

She shook her long, cinnamon-colored hair. Sophie, she said in a puny voice, eyes glued to the floor. I’m sorry. But I’m going with David.

Going with David? I shrieked. Going where? God, this was so embarrassing! Someone in the foyer was screeching her head off and apparently it was me. Going where? You’re my chauffeur, not his.

Oh. Oh. There were two red-faced Et tu Brutes behind Pompeii’s Pillar and only one Caesar. You’re going with David? I managed to whisper. You can’t possibly go with David! You’re only nineteen. He’s twice your age!

‘Forget David,’ Evil hissed. ‘She’s stealing your coat, Sophie. Are you going to let her get away with that? Let her have the Munchkin. He has little feet and we’ll not get into the subject of his penis. But the coat? It’s too short for her and she’ll look goofy in it. You should save her from the embarrassment.’

Kasha hobbled her way to David who took her arm. We’re awfully sorry, Soph. But we’re in love. We didn’t plan it at all, it just happened.

Well, that made everything a lot better. I wanted to skydive from London Tower I was so enthusiastic. It wasn’t my fault. And as I stood there like a ninny watching the two of them shuffle through the doorway like a pair of penguins going off to make an egg I called out to an empty foyer. What about me? Doesn’t anybody care about me?

Chapter Two

IT SEEMED NOT. NO, IT seemed that my bleak future included only a pitch-black bedroom and the howling of a long-lost wolf. And I had only Evil for sympathy.

‘It’s important to pity yourself, Sophie. Since you have no friends to do it for you. Pity is comforting, in a pathetic sort of way. You should lie here forever, in fact, simply wallowing. Until you die.’

Self-pity. I was developing quite a taste for it before Potsy came thundering through my bedroom door and the blinds flew up with a roar.

Enough! she said in a gruff authoritarian voice. Enough of this foolishness. You get out of that bed or I’ll take this tennis racquet to your arse.

I pried open my swollen eyes. You wouldn’t dare!

Don’t tempt me! Your parents and I didn’t raise any quitters. So, if that’s what you’ve chosen to become you’ll be whipped.

I could take you, I said dryly.

She started to dance around like Mohammed Ali. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Get out of that bloody bed and show me.

She was lovely, really, our Potsy. Tall, slender, and with soft silver curls framing her unlined face, she fell within the age range of fifty to one-hundred-three. She desperately lied about her age.

How does it feel to be thirty, Sophie?

‘It’s a compliment," quipped Evil. ‘Since she’s pushing a hundred. Maybe even dragging it. Potsy is really, really old.’

It feels terrible. I’m a pathetic mess. Depressed, really. Nothing to look forward to at all.

Rubbish! You have everything to look forward to. Now that you’ve rid yourself of that selfish beast.

That’s not the way it happened, Pots, as you well know. He rid himself of me. And I know I shouldn’t miss him but I can’t help it. I wiped a tear from my eye with the edge of a floral bed sheet. I’d actually kill with my two bare hands to have him back.

She raised her racquet. It had been the cold war, David and Potsy, silently despising one another. And I’d kill with my two bare hands if he came back here with his wanker between his legs. He’d be doing his own cooking, I’ll tell you that.

With considerable effort I managed to raise my upper body and plop it against the Queen Anne headboard. I’d cook for him.

That’s hilarious! You can’t even make tea. Kasha can at least do that.

Thanks. I needed that.

Where’s your humour? There was a time when you’d have thought that very funny. You know. With your warped disdain for human kind.

Humour? You mean before two people that I loved betrayed me? That humour?

Two people you thought you loved, you mean. Neither was worthy of your love. Not even close.

Evil was fidgeting. ‘She’s getting on your nerves again. Always pushing you around like a wheelbarrow. Are you going to be bullied by a feeble geriatric forever? Yes, of course you are. Potsy is your boss.’

What exactly is it that you want, Pots?

I want you in that loo immediately and out by a quarter past three. We’ll be taking your birthday cake to share with Henry at tea. Do I make myself perfectly clear?

God! Henry. In my fit of self-pitying I’d neglected poor Henry in the home. I’m so sorry, Potsy! He’ll think I’ve abandoned him.

She finally lowered her weapon. He’s alright, dear. As sad as it seems, your dad doesn’t much know who is at his side these days.

I shook my tousled hair. I shall do better. Really.

You’d bloody well better, she said with a great broad grin on her face.

Henry. My champion. My dad. Flashback: I could clearly see him arriving home in his chauffeur-driven Rolls after a rough day at the office where he’d mostly counted money — old money, a dusty, dirty job. Small and spry he sprinted his way into the dining room where Mum awaited with tea.

Is the strange one about, then? he asked.

The strange one, being me, was actually hiding with Churchill, my plush toy cat, in our safe haven under the back stairway where we typically spied on teatime discussions, mostly regarding us.

I wish you wouldn’t talk that way, Henry. Sophie is not the least bit strange. She’s merely singular. Unique. We should encourage that in her.

Singular, is it then? Are you not forgetting odd and peculiar?

Henry!

Sorry, but she is, Liz. You know she is. And we love her dearly just as she is. But where exactly is she now?

Hiding.

Well, of course she is! He thumped his fist on the table. Our girl has more hiding places than Hitler.

Mum pushed back her chair. You need to get over the war, Henry. You weren’t there. Your family was living in India at the time if my memory serves me correctly.

As British citizens!

Yes.

I have every right to the war!

I suppose you do, yes. It’s just that you do go on and on.

I have the right to. Molten tears welled in precious Henry’s eyes. And on that note, forget the tea. I’m going to bloody well have a scotch. It’s horrible news we have for our Sophie today. With that he hopped to the buffet like a miffed leprechaun and poured himself