Fen - Freya North

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it casual – a Trust thing; no ulterior motive, a trust thing. Have a little flirt!

      ‘Maybe you could write a piece on Fetherstone for Art Matters?’ Matt asks.

      ‘Sure,’ Fen replies briskly, tucking hair neatly behind her ears, back ramrod straight. Archivist. Art historian. Colleague. Art is what matters.

      Fen pouted and rested her head on Abi’s shoulder. Abi stroked Fen’s hair, stroked her shoulders, and thought that now was not the time to ask Fen what on earth she was doing wearing her Paul Smith top. Gemma came back from the bar with vodka and Red Bull for each of them.

      ‘Fen’s sulking,’ Abi said to her, ‘don’t quite know why – here lovey, have a little sippy to help lubricate your vocal chords.’

      Fen had more than Abi’s suggested sippy, she practically downed her drink in one. Gemma and Abi regarded her expectantly. ‘First, I go and bloody blush,’ she said.

      ‘Well,’ Abi started, wondering why the facts should amount to a pout of such proportions. She wasn’t quite sure how to continue so she took a long slug at her drink and filched a fag from Gemma.

      ‘Then,’ Fen pouts, ‘then I go and get all disappointed that all he wanted was an article from Fen Fen the Fetherstone Fan.’

      Gemma and Abi smoke their cigarettes contemplatively.

      ‘I was primed, ready and willing to say, “Why, I’d love to have a drink with you”,’ Fen said, ‘instead the only sane answer was, “But of course, how many words and when’s the deadline?”.’

      ‘Yes, but …’ Gemma started. If that had been me, she thought, I’d have suggested discussing word limit over a drink. But it was Fen. And she’s as predictable as I am.

      Fen, having finished her drink and having no need for a cigarette (she’d smoked without inhaling as a teenager and inhaled when she was at university, just the once, before throwing up quite spectacularly), was suddenly lucid. ‘No!’ she exclaimed, ‘the point is that I quite wanted him to make a pass.’

      ‘Cool!’ Abi said. ‘You fancy him.’

      ‘About time too,’ said Gemma.

      ‘Could be dangerous,’ Fen muttered.

      ‘Or the start of something very beautiful,’ Abi jested.

      ‘A good old flirt is quite good fun,’ Gemma shrugged.

      They all nodded. Fen, though, still looked a little perplexed.

      ‘Another drink?’ she offered, though no answer was needed.

      Abi and Gemma spied her at the bar, having a surreptitious look from her left hand to her right. And though this affectation often irritated them, tonight they praised it as they saw that her eyebrows were no longer knitted together in a furrow of discontent. No doubt she’d be ordering doubles all round. A shot for the right hand, a shot for the left.

      It’s not just Otter who wants to play a part in bringing Fen and Matt together. And it’s all very well Gemma and Abi encouraging Fen to the hilt. And Jake banging on about the merits of a zipless fuck, the necessity of The Rebound. More fortuitous, though, Fate is set to lend a helping hand too. Just like in the movies. Eyes meeting across a crowded bar and all that.

      ‘Crown and Goose?’ Jake suggested to the five-a-side team as dusk descended on Regent’s Park. ‘Who’s coming?’

      ‘Sure,’ Matt said, slightly disgruntled that he was in jogging bottoms and an old rugby shirt while Jake had brought along a change of trousers and a clean top. ‘Are you just vain or merely more organized?’ he asked.

      ‘I’m always fastidiously prepared for all eventualities,’ Jake countered, slightly irritated that their team-mates were sloping off to wives and partners and a civilized glass of Chardonnay, ‘plus I had lunch with a firm near us so I nipped back home.’ Matt regarded him nervously. Jake smiled and slapped his back. ‘Fear not,’ he assured Matt, ‘there was no bunny boiling on the stove, no messages on the answerphone and the flat was just as we left it.’

      ‘Three days of silence,’ Matt said. ‘Perhaps she’s genuinely cool about things. Or do you think she’s planning something?’

      ‘Your wedding?’ Jake glibly suggested. ‘Or your death,’ he tempered, on observing Matt’s horror.

      ‘Come on,’ Matt said, walking into the Crown and Goose, ‘lager?’

      ‘Actually,’ says Fen, looking imploringly at the barmaid and darkly at Jake, ‘I was next.’

      ‘Two pints of Carlsberg,’ Jake ordered, momentarily and conveniently deaf; looking squarely at Fen before turning on the charm for the barmaid. Giving Jake an accidentally-on-purpose jab with her elbow and a look of utter distaste, Fen raised her eyebrows at the barmaid in a ‘Men! Pah!’ kind of way, hoping to appeal to her feminist proclivities or sense of conduct at the very least. The barmaid, however, was silently praising God that the softball season had started early and, though it gave her no satisfaction to blank Fen, it gave her much pleasure to serve Jake, even more so because she had pipped Sonia, who’d worked there longer, to the post. Fen started humming Aretha Franklin’s ‘Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves’ but the irony was lost on the barmaid who was engrossed in Jake’s tip and smile; both disproportionate to the service she had provided.

      ‘Come on come on!’ Abi implored Fen when she returned with what were definitely doubles, ‘more Matt!’

      ‘Yes,’ said Gemma, ‘details.’

      Fen, all of a sudden slightly sloshed, was happy to oblige. ‘I was chuffed that he came to the lecture. I think he was genuinely interested, his father championing Julius and all.’

      ‘Oh God, not that bloody bloody sculptor,’ Abi cried, swiping her brow as if a mammoth headache had descended.

      ‘Come on,’ Gemma nudged, ‘vital statistics.’

      ‘I told you,’ Fen said, ‘he’s tall. Ish. And good-looking. Ish. And blond.’

      ‘Ish?’ asked Gemma.

      ‘Well – dark blond. Ish?’

      ‘Natural?’ asked Abi.

      ‘I would hope so,’ said Fen primly.

      ‘God, for an art historian, your powers of description are terrible,’ Abi teased.

      ‘Just because he’s flesh and blood and not stone or metal doesn’t excuse you from technicolor detail,’ Gemma added.

      ‘I’ve only been there four days!’ Fen remonstrated. ‘I just quite fancy him. Not specifically for his looks. Or his personality. He just seems …’ she stopped and her jaw dropped.

      ‘Just?’ Abi prompted.

      ‘Seems?’ Gemma pressed.

      ‘Over there,’ Fen said.

      Thank God the bar was noisy enough for the ensuing squeaks of delight and giggles of excitement from Fen’s group to go unheard. Thank God the bar was crowded enough to dissipate the heat from three sets of eyes burning into Matt.

      ‘Oh God,’ Fen cried, ‘what do I do? Smile? Wave? Ignore? Die? Loo? Home?’ Gemma took Fen’s left hand and gave it a quick but tight squeeze. ‘Has he seen me?’ Fen asked. ‘Has he?’

      ‘Delicious,’ Gemma said, not quite knowing if she should be raising a glass to Matt or his friend.

      ‘You certainly haven’t done him justice,’ said Abi, ‘you didn’t say about the facial hair.’

      ‘The other one, the other one!’ Fen said, wishing she could just stare at one spot and keep her eyes from continually flitting over to the boys.

      ‘I rather like the look of the-other-one-the-other-one,’

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